LECTURES 



ON THE 



ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS. 



By WILLIAM HAZLITT. 



EDITED BY HIS SON. 



" It is a very good office one man does another, when he tells him 
the manner of his being pleased." — Steele. 

, 3 iS^^SSSb< 



LONDON : JOHN TEMPLEMAN, 
248 REGENT STREET. 

MDCCQXLI. 



LONDON: 

PRINTED BY CHARLES REYXELL, 
LITTLE PLLTENEY STREET, 



THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED 

TO ONE OF 

THE BEST ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS OF HIS TIME, 

LAMAN BLANCHARD, 

AS A TOKEN OF 
THE EDITOR'S SINCERE ATTACHMENT AND RESPECT. 



NOTICE. 



The Lectures forming this volume were de- 
livered at the Surrey Institution in 1818, and 
published immediately afterwards. The pre- 
sent Edition, however, contains some addi- 
tions from other sources, collected by the 
author, apparently with a view to a reprint 
of the volume, which additions are distin- 
guished by brackets. Some of these are 
taken from an article contributed by the 
author to the Morning Chronicle in, I think, 
1813, and the rest are critical prefaces, 
writte n by my father for Mr Oxberry's 
Editions of the various Plays remarked 
upon. Having determined upon the speedy 
publication, in a collective form, of the 
whole of my father's writings on Art 



vi NOTICE. 

and Artists, together with some pieces on 
these subjects not hitherto edited,* I at 
first conceived it advisable to transfer the 
tf Lecture on Hogarth' to this latter work, 
where, possibly, in some points of view, it 
might appear better placed ; but, on reflection, 
I have retained that Lecture in its original 
position ; for, after all, Hogarth was a comic 
writer, and one of our best ; the only differ- 
ence is, that he wrote on canvass. 

W. H. 



* This work will appear in the spring of the pre- 
sent year. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 
Introductory. — On Wit and Humour ...... 1 

LECTURE II. 
On Shakspeare and Ben Jonson 56 

LECTURE III. 
On Cowley, Butler, Suckling, Etherege, &c. . . 95 

LECTURE IV. 
On Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farqubar 136 

LECTURE V. 
On the Periodical Essayists 181 * 

LECTURE VI. 
On tbe English Novelists 214 

LECTURE VII. 
On the Works of Hogarth ^ 274 

LECTURE VIII. 
On the Comic Writers of the Last Century . , .312 



LECTURES 

ON THE 

ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS. 



LECTURE I.— INTRODUCTORY. 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps ; 
for he is the only animal that is struck with the 
difference between what things are, and what 
they ought to be. We weep at what thwarts or 
exceeds our desires in serious matters : we laugh 
at what only disappoints our expectations in 
trifles. We shed tears from sympathy with 
real and necessary distress ; as we burst into 
laughter from want of sympathy with that 
which is unreasonable and unnecessary, the 
absurdity of which provokes our spleen or 
mirth, rather than any serious reflections on it. 

B 



2 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



To explain the nature of laughter and tears, 
is to account for the condition of human life ; 
for it is in a manner compounded of these two ! 
It is a tragedy or a comedy — sad or merry, as 
it happens. The crimes and misfortunes that 
are inseparable from it, shock and wound the 
mind when they once seize upon it, and when 
the pressure can no longer be borne, seek relief 
in tears: the follies and absurdities that men 
commit, or the odd accidents that befal them, 
afford us amusement from the very rejection of 
these false claims upon our sympathy, and end 
in laughter. If everything that went wrong, 
if every vanity or weakness in another gave us 

sensible pang, it would be hard indeed : but 
as long as the disagreeableness of the conse- 
quences of a sudden disaster is kept out of 
sight by the immediate oddity of the circum- 
stances, and the absurdity or unaccountableness 
of a foolish action is the most striking thing in 
it, the ludicrous prevails over the pathetic, and 
we receive pleasure instead of pain from the 
farce of life which is played before us, and 
which discomposes our gravity as often as it 
fails to move our anger or our pity ! 

Tears may be considered as the natural and 
involuntary resource of the mind overcome by 
some sudden and violent emotion, before it has 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



3 



had time to reconcile its feelings to the change 
of circumstances : while laughter may be de- 
fined to he the same sort of convulsive and 
involuntary movement, occasioned by mere 
surprise or contrast (in the absence of any more 
serious emotion), before it has time to reconcile 
its belief to contradictory appearances. If we 
hold a mask before our face, and approach a 
child with this disguise on, it will at first, from 
the oddity and incongruity of the appearance, 
be inclined to laugh $ if we go nearer to it, 
steadily, and without saying a word, it will 
begin to be alarmed, and be half-inclined to 
cry : if we suddenly take off the mask, it will 
recover from its fears, and burst out a-laughing; 
but if, instead of presenting the old well-known 
countenance, we have concealed a satyr's head 
or some frightful caricature behind the first 
mask, the suddenness of the change will not in 
this case be a source of merriment to it, but will 
convert its surprise into an agony of consterna- 
tion, and will make it scream out for help, even 
though it may be convinced that the whole is a 
trick at bottom. 

The alternation of tears and laughter, in this 
little episode in common life, depends almost 
entirely on the greater or less degree of interest 
attached to the different changes of appearance. 



4 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



The mere suddenness of the transition, the 
mere baulking our expectations, and turning 
them abruptly into another channel, seems to 
give additional liveliness and gaiety to the 
animal spirits ; but the instant the change is 
not only sudden, but threatens serious conse- 
quences, or calls up the shape of danger, terror 
supersedes our disposition to mirth, and laughter 
gives place to tears. It is usual to play with 
infants, and make them laugh by clapping your 
hands suddenly before them ; but if you clapped 
your hands too loud, or too near their sight, 
their countenances immediately change, and 
they hide them in the nurse's arms. Or sup- 
pose the same child, grown up a little older, 
comes to a place, expecting to meet a person it 
is particularly fond of, and does not find that 
person there, its countenance suddenly falls, its 
lips begin to quiver, its cheek turns pale, its 
eye glistens, and it vents its little sorrow 
(grown too big to be concealed) in a flood of 
tears. Again, if the child meets the same 
person unexpectedly after a long absence, the 
same effect will be produced by an excess of 
joy, with different accompaniments ; that is, the 
surprise and the emotion excited will make the 
blood come into his face, his eyes sparkle, his 
tongue falter or be mute, but in either case the 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



5 



tears will gush to his relief, and lighten the 
pressure about his heart. On the other hand, 
if a child is playing at hide-and-seek, or blind- 
man's-buff, with persons it is ever so fond of, 
and either misses them where it had made sure 
of finding them, or suddenly runs up against 
them where it had least expected it, the shock or 
additional impetus given to the imagination by 
the disappointment or the discovery, in a matter 
of this indifference, will only vent itself in a fit 
of laughter.* The transition here is not from one 
thing of importance to another, or from a state of 
indifference to a state of strong excitement ; but 
merely from one impression to another that we 
did not at all expect, and when we had expected 
just the contrary. The mind having been led 
to form a certain conclusion, and the result 
producing an immediate solution of continuity 
in the chain of our ideas, this alternate excite- 
ment and relaxation of the imagination, the 
object also striking upon the mind more vividly 
in its loose unsettled state, and before it has 
had time to recover and collect itself, causes 

* A child that has hid itself out of the way in sport, is 
under a great temptation to laugh at the unconsciousness 
of others as to its situation. A person concealed from assas- 
sins, is in no danger of betraying his situation by laughing. 



6 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



that alternate excitement and relaxation, or 
irregular convulsive movement of the muscular 
and nervous system, which constitutes physical 
laughter. The discontinuous in our sensations 
produces a correspondent jar and discord in 
the frame. The steadiness of our faith and 
of our features begins to give way at the same 
time. We turn with an incredulous smile from 
a story that staggers our belief: and we are 
ready to split our sides with laughing at an 
extravagance that sets all common sense and 
serious concern at defiance. 

To understand or define the ludicrous, we 
must first know what the serious is. Now the 
serious is the habitual stress which the mind 
lays upon the expectation of a given order of 
events, following one another with a certain 
regularity and weight of interest attached to 
them. When this stress is increased beyond its 
usual pitch of intensity, so as to overstrain the 
feelings by the violent opposition of good to 
bad, or of objects to our desires, it becomes the 
pathetic or tragical. The ludicrous, or comic, 
is the unexpected loosening or relaxing this 
stress below its usual pitch of intensity, by such 
an abrupt transposition of the order of our 
ideas, as taking the mind unawares, throws it 



ON WIT AND nUMOUR. 



7 



off its guard, startles it into a lively sense of 
pleasure, and leaves no time nor inclination for 
painful reflections. 

The essence of the laughable then is the 
incongruous, the disconnecting one idea from 
another, or the jostling of one feeling against 
another. The first and most obvious cause of 
laughter is to be found in the simple succession 
of events, as in the sudden shifting of a disguise, 
or some unlooked-for accident, without any 
absurdity of character or situation. The acci- 
dental contradiction between our expectations 
and the event can hardly be said, however, to 
amount to the ludicrous ; it is merely laughable. 
The ludicrous is where there is the same 
contradiction between the object and our ex- 
pectations, heightened by some deformity or 
inconvenience, that is, by its being contrary to 
what is customary or desirable | as the ridicu- 
lous, which is the highest degree of the laugh- 
able, is that which is contrary not only to 
custom but to sense and reason, or is a volun- 
tary departure from what we have a right to 
expect from those who are conscious of 
absurdity and propriety in words, looks, and 
actions. 

Of these different kinds or degrees of the 
laughable, the first is the most shallow and 



8 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



short-lived; for the instant the immediate 
surprise of a thing's merely happening one way 
or another is over, there is nothing to throw us 
back upon our former expectation, and renew 
our wonder at the event a second time. The 
second sort, that is, the ludicrous arising out of 
the improbable or distressing, is more deep and 
lasting, either because the painful catastrophe 
excites a greater curiosity, or because the old 
impression, from its habitual hold on the 
imagination, still recurs mechanically, so that 
it is longer before we can seriously make up 
our minds to the unaccountable deviation from 
it. The third sort, or the ridiculous arising 
out of absurdity as well as improbability, that 
is, where the defect or weakness is of a man's 
own seeking, is the most refined of all, but not 
always so pleasant as the last, because the same 
contempt and disapprobation which sharpens 
and subtilises our sense of the impropriety, adds 
a severity to it inconsistent with perfect ease 
and enjoyment. This last species is properly 
the province of satire. The principle of con- 
trast is, however, the same in all the stages, in 
the simply laughable, the ludicrous, the ridicu- 
lous; and the effect is only the more complete, 
the more durably and pointedly this principle 
operates. 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



9 



To give some examples in these different 
kinds. We laugh, when children, at the sudden 
removing of a paste-board mask: we laugh, 
when grown up, more gravely at the tearing 
off the mask of deceit. We laugh at ab- 
surdity; we laugh at deformity. We laugh 
at a bottle-nose in a caricature ; at a stuffed 
figure of an alderman in a pantomime, and at 
the tale of Slaukenbergius. A dwarf standing 
by a giant makes a contemptible figure enough. 
Rosinante and Dapple are laughable from con- 
trast, as their masters from the same principle 
make two for a pair. We laugh at the dress of 
foreigners, and they at ours. Three chimney- 
sweepers meeting three Chinese in Lincoln's 
Inn Fields, they laughed at one another till 
they were ready to drop down. Country people 
laugh at a person because they never saw him 
before. Any one dressed in the height of the 
fashion, or quite out of it, is equally an object 
of ridicule. One rich source of the ludicrous 
is distress with which we cannot sympathise 
from its absurdity or insignificance. Women 
laugh at their lovers. We laugh at a damned 
author, in spite of our teeth, and though he 
may be our friend. " There is something in 
the misfortunes of our best friends that pleases 
us." We laugh at people on the top of a stage- 



10 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



coach, or in it, if they seem in great extremity. 
It is hard to hinder children from laughing at 
a stammerer, at a negro, at a drunken man, or 
even at a madman. We laugh at mischief. 
We laugh at what we do not believe. We say 
that an argument or an assertion that is very 
absurd, is quite ludicrous. We laugh to show 
our satisfaction with ourselves, or our con- 
tempt for those about us, or to conceal our 
envy or our ignorance. We laugh at fools, and 
at those who pretend to be wise — at extreme sim- 
plicity, awkwardness, hypocrisy, and affecta- 
tion. " They were talking of me," says Scrub, 
"for they laughed consumedly" Lord Fop- 
pington's in sensibility to ridicule, and airs of 
ineffable self-conceit, are no less admirable ; and 
Joseph Surface's cant maxims of morality, when 
once disarmed of their power to do hurt, become 
sufficiently ludicrous. We laugh at that in 
others which is a serious matter to ourselves ; 
because our self-love is stronger than our sym- 
pathy, sooner takes the alarm, and instantly 
turns our heedless mirth into gravity, which only 
enhances the jest to others. Some one is gene- 
rally sure to be the sufferer by a joke. What is 
sport to one is death to another. It is only very 
sensible or very honest people who laugh as 
freely at their own absurdities as at those of their 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



11 



neighbours. In general the contrary rule holds, 
and we only laugh at those misfortunes in which 
we are spectators, not sharers. The injury, the 
disappointment, shame, and vexation that we 
feel put a stop to our mirth ; while the disasters 
that come home to us, and excite our repug- 
nance and dismay, are an amusing spectacle to 
others. The greater resistance we make, and the 
greater the perplexity into which we are thrown, 
the more lively and piquant is the intellectual 
display of cross-purposes to the bye-standers. 
Our humiliation is their triumph. We are oc- 
cupied with the disagreeableness of the result 
instead of its oddity or unexpectedness. Others 
see only the conflict of motives and the sudden 
alternation of events — we feel the pain as well, 
which more than counterbalances the specula- 
tive entertainment we might receive from the 
contemplation of our abstract situation. 

You cannot force people to laugh, you cannot 
give a reason why they should laugh ; — they 
must laugh of themselves, or not at all. As we 
laugh from a spontaneous impulse, we laugh 
the more at any restraint upon this impulse. 
We laugh at a thing merely because we ought 
not. If we think we must not laugh, this per- 
verse impediment makes our temptation to laugh 
the greater ; for by endeavouring to keep the 



12 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



obnoxious image out of sight, it comes upon us 
more irresistibly and repeatedly, and the incli- 
nation to indulge our mirth, the longer it is held 
back, collects its force, and breaks out the more 
violently in peals of laughter. In like manner 
anything we must not think of makes us laugh, 
by its coming upon us by stealth and unawares, 
and from the very efforts we make to exclude it. 
A secret, a loose word, a wanton jest, makes peo- 
ple laugh. Aretine laughed himself to death at 
hearing a lascivious story. Wickedness is often 
made a substitute for wit ; and in most of our 
good old comedies the intrigue of the plot and 
the double meaning of the dialogue go hand-in- 
hand, and keep up the ball with wonderful spirit 
between them. The consciousness, however it 
may arise, that there is something that we ought 
to look grave at, is almost always a signal for 
laughter outright : we can hardly keep our 
countenance at a sermon, a funeral, or a wed- 
ding. What an excellent old custom was that 
of throwing the stocking ! What a deal of in- 
nocent mirth has been spoiled by the disuse of 
it ! It is not an easy matter to preserve deco- 
rum in courts of justice ; the smallest circum- 
stance that interferes with the solemnity of the 
proceedings throws the whole place into an up- 
roar of laughter. People at the point of death 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



13 



often say smart things. Sir Thomas More jested 
with his executioner: Rabelais and Wycherley 
both died with a bon-mot in their mouths. 

Misunderstandings (malentendus), where one 
person means one thing, and another is aiming 
at something else, are another great source of 
comic humour, on the same principle of ambi- 
guity and contrast. 

There is a high- wrought instance of this in 
the dialogue between Aim well and Gibbet, in 
the 6 Beaux' Stratagem,' where Aimwell mistakes 
his companion for an officer in a marching regi- 
ment, and Gibbet takes it for granted that the 
gentleman is a highwayman. The alarm and 
consternation occasioned by some one saying 
to him in the course of common conversation, 
" I apprehend you," is the most ludicrous thing 
in that admirably natural and powerful perfor- 
mance, Mr Emery's c Robert Tyke.' Again, 
unconsciousness in the person himself of what 
he is about, or of what others think of him, is 
also a great heightener of the sense of absurdity. 
It makes it come the fuller home upon us from 
his insensibility to it. His simplicity sets off 
the satire, and gives it a finer edge. It is a 
more extreme case still where the person is 
aware of being the object of ridicule, and yet 
seems perfectly reconciled to it as a matter of 



14 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



course. So wit is often the more forcible and 
pointed for being dry and serious, for it then 
seems as if the speaker himself had no intention 
in it, and we were the first to find it out. Irony, 
as a species of wit, owes its force to the same 
principle. In such cases it is the contrast 
between the appearance and the reality, the 
suspense of belief, and the seeming incongruity, 
that gives point to the ridicule, and makes it 
enter the deeper when the first impression is 
overcome. Excessive impudence, as in the 
' Liar or excessive modesty, as in the hero of 
6 She Stoops to Conquer f or a mixture of the 
two, as in the 6 Busy Body/ are equally amu- 
sing. Lying is a species of wit and humour. To 
lay anything to a person's charge from which 
he is perfectly free, shows spirit and inven- 
tion ; and the more incredible the effrontery, the 
greater is the joke. 

There is nothing more powerfully humorous 
than what is called keeping in comic character, 
as we see it very finely exemplified in Sancho 
Panza and Don Quixote. The proverbial 
phlegm and the romantic gravity of these two 
celebrated persons may be regarded as the height 
of this kind of excellence. The deep feeling of 
character strengthens the sense of the ludicrous. 
Keeping in comic character is consistency in 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



15 



absurdity; a determined and laudable attach- 
ment to the incongruous and singular. The 
regularity completes the contradiction ; for the 
number of instances of deviation from the right 
line, branching out in all directions, shows the 
inveteracy of the original bias to any extrava- 
gance or folly, the natural improbability, as it 
were, increasing every time with the multiplica- 
tion of chances for a return to common sense, 
and in the end mounting up to an incredible and 
unaccountably ridiculous height, when we find 
our expectations as invariably baffled. The 
most curious problem of all, is this truth of ab- 
surdity to itself. That reason and good sense 
should be consistent, is not wonderful : but that 
caprice, and whim, and fantastical prejudice, 
should be uniform and infallible in their results, 
is the surprising thing. But while this charac- 
teristic clue to absurdity helps on the ridicule, it 
also softens and harmonises its excesses; and 
the ludicrous is here blended with a certain 
beauty and decorum, from this very truth of 
habit and sentiment, or from the principle of 
similitude and dissimilitude. The devotion to 
nonsense, and enthusiasm about trifles, is highly 
affecting as a moral lesson : it is one of the 
striking weaknesses and greatest happinesses of 
our nature. That which excites so lively and 



16 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



lasting an interest in itself, even though it should 
not be wisdom, is not despicable in the sight of 
reason and humanity. We cannot suppress the 
smile on the lip ; but the tear should also stand 
ready to start from the eye. The history of 
hobby-horses is equally instructive and delight- 
ful ; and after the pair I have just alluded to, 
My Uncle Toby's is one of the best and gentlest 
that "ever lifted leg!" The inconveniences, 
odd accidents, falls, and bruises to which they 
expose their riders, contribute their share to the 
amusement of the spectators ; and the blows and 
wounds that the Knight of the Sorrowful Coun- 
tenance received in his many perilous adventures, 
have applied their healing influence to many a 
hurt mind. — In what relates to the laughable, 
as it arises from unforeseen accidents or self- 
willed scrapes, the pain, the shame, the mortifi- 
cation, and utter helplessness of situation, add 
to the joke, provided they are momentary, or 
overwhelming only to the imagination of the 
sufferer. Malvolio's punishment and appre- 
hensions are as comic, from our knowing that 
they are not real, as Christopher Sly's drunken 
transformation and short-lived dream of happi- 
ness are for the" like reason. Parson Adams's 
fall into the tub at the Squire's, or his being 
discovered in bed with Mrs Slipslop, though 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 17 

pitiable, are laughable accidents ; nor do we read 
with much gravity of the loss of his iEschylus, 
serious as it w r as to him at the time. A Scotch 
clergyman, as he was going to church, seeing 
a spruce, conceited mechanic, who was walking 
before him, suddenly covered all over with 
dirt, either by falling into the kennel, or by 
some other calamity befalling him, smiled and 
passed on ; but afterwards seeing the same per- 
son, who had stopped to refit, seated directly 
facing him in the gallery, with a look of perfect 
satisfaction and composure, as if nothing of the 
sort had happened to him, the idea of his late 
disaster and present self-complacency struck 
him so powerfully, that, unable to resist the im- 
pulse, he flung himself back in the pulpit, and 
laughed till he could laugh no longer. I re- 
member reading a story in an odd number of 
the 6 European Magazine/ of an old gentleman 
who used to walk out every afternoon w T ith a 
gold-headed cane, in the fields opposite Balti- 
more House, which were then open, only with 
foot-paths crossing them. He w r as frequently 
accosted by a beggar with a wooden leg, to 
whom he gave money, which only made him 
more importunate. One day, when he was 
more troublesome than usual, a well-dressed 
person happening to come up, and observing 

c 



18 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



how saucy the fellow was, said to the gentleman, 
a Sir, if you will lend me your cane for a mo- 
ment, Til give him a good threshing for his 
impertinence. " The old gentleman, smiling at 
the proposal, handed him his cane, which the 
other no sooner was going to apply to the 
shoulders of the culprit, than he immediately 
whipped off his wooden leg, and scampered off 
with great alacrity, and his chastiser after him 
as hard as he could go. The faster the one ran 
the faster the other followed him, brandishing 
the cane, to the great astonishment of the gen- 
tleman who owned it, till having fairly crossed 
the fields, they suddenly turned a corner, and 
nothing more was seen of either of them. 

In the way of mischievous adventure, and a 
wanton exhibition of ludicrous weakness in cha- 
racter, nothing is superior to the comic parts of 
the 1 Arabian Nights' Entertainments.' To take 
only the set of stories of the Little Hunchback, 
who was choked with a bone, and the Barber of 
Bagdad and his seven brothers — there is that of 
the tailor who was persecuted by the miller's 
w T ife, and who, after toiling all night in the mill, 
got nothing for his pains — of another who fell 
in love with a fine lady, who pretended to re- 
turn his passion, and inviting him to her house, 
as the preliminary condition of her favour, had 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



19 



his eyebrows shaved, his clothes stripped off, 
and being turned loose into a winding gallery, 
he was to follow her, and by overtaking obtain 
all his wishes, but after a turn or two, stumbled 
on a trap-door, and fell plump into the street, to 
the great astonishment of the spectators and his 
own, shorn of his eyebrows, naked, and without 
a ray of hope left : — that of the castle-building 
pedlar, who in kicking his wife, the supposed 
daughter of an emperor, kicks down his basket 
of glass, the brittle foundation of his ideal wealth, 
his good fortune, and his arrogance : — that, 
again, of the beggar who dined with the Barme- 
cide, and feasted with him on the names of wines 
and dishes : and, last and best of all, the inimit- 
able story of the impertinent Baxber, himself one 
of the seven, and worthy to be so; his pertinacious, 
incredible, teasing, deliberate, yet unmeaning 
folly, his wearing out the patience of the young 
gentleman whom he is sent for to shave, his 
preparations and his professions of speed, his 
taking out an astrolabe to measure the height 
of the sun while his razors are getting ready, 
his dancing the dance of Zimri and singing the 
song of Zamtout, his disappointing the young 
man of an assignation, following him to the 
place of rendezvous, and alarming the master of 
the house in his anxiety for his safety, by which 



20 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



his unfortunate patron loses his hand in the 
affray, and this is felt as an awkward accident. 
The danger which the same loquacious person 
is afterwards in of losing his head for want 
of saying who he was, because he would not 
forfeit his character of being " justly called the 
Silent/' is a consummation of the jest, though, 
if it had really taken place, it would have been 
carrying the joke too far. There are a thou- 
sand instances of the same sort in the Thousand 
and One Nights, which are an inexhaustible 
mine of comic humour and invention, and 
which, from the manners of the East which 
they describe, carry the principle of callous 
indifference in a jest as far as it can go. The 
serious and marvellous stories in that work, 
which have been so much admired and so 
greedily read, appear to me monstrous and 
abortive fictions, like disjointed dreams, dic- 
tated by a preternatural dread of arbitrary and 
despotic power, as the comic and familiar 
stories are rendered proportionally amusing and 
interesting from the same principle operating 
in a different direction, and producing endless 
uncertainty and vicissitude, and an heroic 
contempt for the untoward accidents and petty 
vexations of human life. It is the gaiety of 
despair^ the mirth and laughter of a respite 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



21 



during pleasure from death. The strongest 
instances of effectual and harrowing* imagina- 
tion are in the story of Amine and her three 
sisters, whom she led by her side as a leash of 
hounds, and of the goul who nibbled grains of 
rice for her dinner, and preyed on human 
carcasses. In this condemnation of the serious 
parts of the Arabian Nights, I have nearly all 
the world, and in particular the author of the 
< Ancient Mariner/ against me, who must be 
allowed to be a judge of such matters, and who 
said, with a subtlety of philosophical conjec- 
ture which he alone possesses, that " if I did 
not like them, it was because I did not dream. " 
On the other hand, I have Bishop Atterbury 
on my side, who, in a letter to Pope, fairly 
confesses that u he could not read them in 
his old age." 

There is another source of comic humour 
which has been but little touched on or attended 
to by the critics — not the infliction of casual 
pain, but the pursuit of uncertain pleasure and 
idle gallantry. Half the business and gaiety 
of comedy turns upon this. Most of the 
adventures, difficulties, demurs, hair-breadth 
'scapes, disguises, deceptions, blunders, disap- 
pointments, successes, excuses, all the dex- 
trous manoeuvres, artful inuendos, assignations, 



22 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



billets-doux, double entendres, sly allusions, and 
elegant flattery, have an eye to this — to the 
obtaining of those " favours secret, sweet, and 
precious," in which love and pleasure consist, 
and which when attained, and the equivoque is 
at an end, the curtain drops, and the play is 
over. All the attractions of a subject that can 
only be glanced at indirectly, that is a sort of 
forbidden ground to the imagination, except 
under severe restrictions, which are constantly 
broken through; all the resources it supplies 
for intrigue and invention ; the bashfulness of 
the clownish lover, his looks of alarm and 
petrified astonishment ; the foppish affectation 
and easy confidence of the happy man ; the 
dress, the airs, the languor, the scorn, and 
indifference of the fine lady ; the bustle, pert- 
ness, loquaciousness, and tricks of the cham- 
bermaid; the impudence, lies, and roguery of 
the valet ; the match-making and unmaking ; 
the wisdom of the wise ; the sayings of the 
witty; the folly of the fool; u the soldier's, 
scholar's, courtier's eye, tongue, sword, the 
glass of fashion and the mould of form/' have 
all a view to this. It is the closet of Blue- 
Beard. It is the life and soul of Wycherley, 
Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar's plays. 
It is the salt of comedy, without which it 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



23 



would be worthless and insipid. It makes 
Horner decent, and Millamant divine. It is 
the jest between Tattle and Miss Prue. It is 
the bait with which Olivia, in the ( Plain 
Dealer/ plays with honest Manly. It lurks at 
the bottom of the catechism which Archer 
teaches Cherry, and which she learns by heart. 
It gives the finishing grace to Mrs Amlet's 
confession—" Though I'm old, I'm chaste." 
Valentine and his Angelica would be nothing 
without it ; Miss Peggy would not be worth 
a gallant ; and Slender' s * sweet Anne Page ' 
would be no more ! " The age of comedy 
would be gone, and the glory of our play- 
houses extinguished for ever." Our old 
comedies would be invaluable, were it only for 
this, that they keep alive this sentiment, which 
still survives in all its fluttering grace and 
breathless palpitations on the stage. 

Humour is the describing the ludicrous as 
it is in itself ; wit is the exposing it, by com- 
paring or contrasting it with something else. 
Humour is, as it were, the growth of nature 
and accident; wit is the product of art and 
fancy. Humour, as it is shown in books, is an 
imitation of the natural or acquired absurdities 
of mankind, or of the ludicrous in accident, 



24 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



situation', and character ; wit is the illustrating 
and heightening the sense of that absurdity by 
some sudden and unexpected likeness or oppo- 
sition of one thing to another, which sets off 
the quality we laugh at or despise in a still 
more contemptible or striking point of view. 
Wit, as distinguished from poetry, is the ima- 
gination or fancy inverted and so applied to 
given objects, as to make the little look less, 
the mean more light and worthless ; or to 
divert our admiration or wean our affections 
from that which is lofty and impressive, instead 
of producing a more intense admiration and 
exalted passion, as poetry does. Wit may 
sometimes, indeed, be shown in compliments 
as well as satire ; as in the common epigram — * 

" Accept a miracle, instead of wit : 
See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ." 

But then the mode of paying it is playful and 
ironical, and contradicts itself in the very act 
of making its own performance an humble 
foil to another's. Wit hovers round the borders 
of the light and trifling, whether in matters 
of pleasure or pain ; for as soon as it describes 
the serious seriously, it ceases to be wit, and 
passes into a different form. Wit is, in fact, 
the eloquence of indifference, or an ingenious 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 25 

and striking exposition of those evanescent and 
glancing impressions of objects which affect 
us more from surprise or contrast to the train 
of our ordinary and literal preconceptions, 
than from anything in the objects themselves 
exciting our necessary sympathy or lasting 
hatred. The favourite employment of wit is 
to add littleness to littleness, and heap con- 
tempt on insignificance by all the arts of petty 
and incessant warfare ; or if it ever affects to 
aggrandise, and use the language of hyperbole, 
it is only to betray into derision by a fatal 
comparison, as in the mock-heroic 5 or if it 
treats of serious passion, it must do it so as to 
lower the tone of intense and high-wrought 
sentiment by the introduction of burlesque 
and familiar circumstances. To give an 
instance or two. Butler, in his 'Hudibras/ 
compares the change of night into day to the 
change of colour in a boiled lobster. 

" The sun had long since, in the lap 
Of Thetis, taken out his nap ; 
And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn 
From black to red began to turn : 
When Hudibras, whom thoughts and aching 
'Twixt sleeping kept all night and waking, 
Began to rub his drowsy eyes, 
And from his couch prepared to rise, 
Resolving to dispatch the deed 
He vow'd to do with trusty speed." 



i 



26 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



Compare this with the following stanzas in 
Spenser, treating of the same subject : — 

" By this the Northern Waggoner had set 
His seven-fold team behind the stedfast star, 
That was in ocean waves, yet never wet, 
But firm is fix'd and sendeth light from far 
To all that in the wide deep wand'ring are : 
And cheerful chanticleer with his note shrill, 
Had warned once that Phoebus' fiery car 
In haste was climbing up the eastern hill, 

Full envious that night so long his room did fill. 

At last the golden oriental gate 
Of greatest, heaven 'gan to open fair, 
And Phoebus, fresh as bridegroom to his mate, 
Came dancing forth, shaking his dewy hair, 
And hurl'd his glist'ring beams through gloomy air : 
Which when the wakeful elf perceived, straitway 
He started up, and did himself prepare 
In sun- bright arms and battailous array, 
For with that pagan proud he combat will that day." 

In this last passage every image is brought 
forward that can give effect to our natural 
impressions of the beauty, the splendour, and 
solemn grandeur of the rising sun ; pleasure 
and power wait on every line and word: 
whereas, in the other, the only memorable thing 
is a grotesque and ludicrous illustration of the 
alteration which takes place from darkness to 
gorgeous light, and that brought from the 
lowest instance, and with associations that can 
only disturb and perplex the imagination in 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 27 

its conception of the real object it describes. 
There cannot be a more witty, and at the same 
time degrading comparison, than that in the 
same author, of the Bear turning round the 
pole-star to a bear tied to a stake : — 

" But now a sport more formidable 
Had raked together village rabble ; 
'Twas an old way of recreating 
Which learned butchers call bear-baiting, 
A bold adventurous exercise 
With ancient heroes in high prize, 
For authors do affirm it came 
From Isthmian or Nemsean game ; 
Others derive it from the Bear 
That's fixed in northern hemisphere, 
And round about his pole does make 
A circle like a bear at stake, 
That at the chain's end wheels about 
And overturns the rabble rout." 

I need not multiply examples of this sort. 
Wit or ludicrous invention produces its effect 
oftenest by comparison, but not always. It 
frequently effects its purposes by unexpected and 
subtle distinctions. For instance, in the first 
kind, Mr Sheridan's description of Mr Ad- 
dington's administration as the fag-end of Mr 
Pitt's, who had remained so long on the 
treasury bench that, like Nicias in the fable, 
"he left the sitting part of the man behind 
him," is as fine an example of metaphorical 



28 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



wit as any on record. The same idea seems, 
however, to have been included in the old well- 
known nickname of the Rump Parliament. 
Almost as happy an instance of the other kind 
of wit, w T hich consists in sudden retorts, in 
turns upon an idea, and diverting the train of 
your adversary's argument abruptly and adroitly 
into another channel, may be seen in the sar- 
castic reply of Porson, who hearing some one 
observe, that " certain modern poets would be 
read and admired when Homer and Virgil were 
forgotten/' made answer — "And not till 
then ! " Sir Robert Walpole's definition of the 
gratitude of place-expectants, that "it is a 
lively sense of future favours," is no doubt wit, 
but it does not consist in the finding out any 
coincidence or likeness, but in suddenly trans- 
posing the order of time in the common account 
of this feeling, so as to make the professions of 
those who pretend to it correspond more with 
their practice. It is filling up a blank in the 
human heart with a word that explains its 
hollowness at once. Voltaire's saying, in answer 
to a stranger who was observing how tall his 
trees grew — "That they had nothing else to 
do/' — was a quaint mixture of wit and humour, 
making it out as if they really led a lazy, 
laborious life; but there was here neither 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



29 



allusion nor metaphor. Again, that master- 
stroke in 6 Hudibras ' is sterling wit and pro- 
found satire, where, speaking of certain 
religious hypocrites, he says, that they 

" Compound for sins they are inclined to 
By damning those they have no mind to;" 

but the wit consists in the truth of the character, 
and in the happy exposure of the ludicrous con- 
tradiction between the pretext and the practice ; 
between their lenity towards their own vices, 
and their severity to those of others. The 
same principle of nice distinction must be 
allowed to prevail in those lines of the same 
author, where he is professing to expound the 
dreams of judicial astrology. 

" There's but a twinkling of a star 
Betwixt a man of peace and war, 
A thief and justice, fool and knave, 
A huffing officer and a slave ; 
A crafty lawyer and pickpocket ; 
A great philosopher and a blockhead ; 
A formal preacher and a player ; 
A learned physician and man-slayer." 

The finest piece of wit I know of, is in the 
lines of Pope on the Lord Mayor's show — 

" Now night descending, the proud scene is o'er ; 
But lives in Settle's numbers one day more." 

This is certainly as mortifying an inversion of 



30 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



the idea of poetical immortality as could be 
thought of : it fixes the maximum of littleness 
and insignificance ; but it is not by likeness to 
anything else that it does this, but by literally 
taking the lowest possible duration of ephemeral 
reputation, marking it (as with a slider) on the 
scale of endless renown, and giving a rival 
credit for it as his loftiest praise. In a word, 
the shrewd separation or disentangling of ideas 
that seem the same, or where the secret contra- 
diction is not sufficiently suspected, and is of a 
ludicrous and whimsical nature, is wit just as 
j much as the bringing together those that appear 
at first sight totally different. There is then no 
sufficient ground for admitting Mr Locke's 
celebrated definition of wit, which he makes to 
consist in the finding out striking and unex- 
pected resemblances in things so as to make 
pleasant pictures in the fancy, while judgment 
and reason, according to him, lie the clean 
contrary way, in separating and nicely distin- 
guishing'' those wherein the smallest difference 
is to be found.* 

* His words are — " If in having our ideas in the 
memory ready at hand consists quickness of parts, in this 
of having them unconfused, and being able nicely to dis- 
tinguish one thing from another, where there is but the 
least difference, consists in a great measure the exactness 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



31 



On this definition, Harris, the author of 
i Hermes/ has very well observed, that the 
demonstrating the equality of the three angles 

of judgment and clearness of reason, which is to be 
observed in one man above another. And hence, perhaps, 
may be given some reason of that common observation, 
that men who have a great deal of wit and prompt 
memories, have not always the clearest judgment or 
deepest reason. For wit lying mostly in the assemblage 
of ideas, and putting them together with quickness and 
variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or 
congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and 
agreeable visions in the fancy ; judgment, on the con- 
trary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully 
one from another ideas wherein can be found the least 
difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude, 
and by affinity to take one thing for another." (Essay , 
vol. i, p. 143. ) This definition, such as it is, Mr Locke 
took without acknowledgment from Hobbes, who says in 
his ' Leviathan,' " This difference of quickness in imagin- 
ing is caused by the difference of men's passions, that love 
and dislike some one thing, some another, and therefore 
some men's thoughts run one way, some another, and are 
held to and observe differently the things that pass 
through their imagination. And whereas in this suc- 
cession of thoughts there is nothing to observe in the 
things they think on, but either in what they be like one 
another, or in what they be unlike, those that observe 
their similitudes, in case they be such as are but rarely 
observed by others, are said to have a good wit, by which 
is meant on this occasion a good fancy. But they that 
observe their differences and dissimilitudes, which is 
called distinguishing and discerning, and judging between 
thing and thing, in case such discerning be not easy, are 



32 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



of a right-angled triangle to two right ones, 
would, upon the principle here stated, be a 
piece of wit instead of an act of the judgment 
or understanding, and Euclid's Elements a col- 
lection of epigrams. On the contrary, it has 
appeared that the detection and exposure of 
difference, particularly where this implies nice 
and subtle observation, as in discriminating 
between pretence and practice, between appear- 
ance and reality, is common to wit and satire 
with judgment and reasoning, and certainly the 
comparing and connecting our ideas together is 
an essential part of reason and judgment, as 
well as of wit and fancy. Mere wdt, as opposed 
to reason or argument, consists in striking out 
some casual and partial coincidence which has 
nothing to do, or at least implies no necessary 
connection with the nature of the things, which 
are forced into a seeming analogy by a play 
upon words, or some irrelevant conceit, as in 
puns, riddles, alliteration, &c. The jest, in all 



said to have a good judgment ; and particularly in matter 
of conversation and business, wherein times, places, and 
persons are to be discerned, this virtue is called discretion. 
The former, that is, fancy, without the help of judgment, 
is not commended for a virtue ; but the latter, which is 
judgment or discretion, is commended for itself, without 
the help of fancy."— Leviathan, p. 32. 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



33 



such cases, lies in the sort of mock-identity, or 
nominal resemblance, established by the inter- 
vention of the same Words expressing different 
ideas, and countenancing, as it were, by a fatality 
of language, the mischievous insinuation which 
the person who has the wit to take advantage of 
it wishes to convey. So when the disaffected 
French wits applied to the new order of the 
Fleur du lys the double entendre of Compagnons 
d' Ulysse, or companions of Ulysses, meaning 
the animal into which the fellow-travellers of 
the hero of the Odyssey were transformed, this 
was a shrewd and biting intimation of a galling 
truth (if truth it were) by a fortuitous concourse 
of letters of the alphabet, jumping in " a fore- 
gone conclusion," but there was no proof of the 
thing, unless it was self-evident. And, indeed, 
this may be considered as the best defence of 
the contested maxim, that ridicule is the test 
of truth; viz. that it does not contain or 
attempt a formal proof of it, but owes its power 
of conviction to the bare suggestion of it, so 
that if the thing when once hinted is not clear 
in itself, the satire fails of its effect and falls to 
the ground. The sarcasm here glanced at the 
character of the new or old French noblesse 
may not be well-founded ; but it is so like truth, 
and u comes in such a questionable shape," 

B 



34 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



backed with the appearance of an identical 
proposition, that it would require a long train 
of facts and laboured arguments to do away the 
impression, even if we were sure of the honesty 
and wisdom of the person who undertook to 
refute it. A flippant jest is as good a test of 
truth as a solid bribe ; and there are serious 
sophistries, 

" Soul-killing lies, and truths that work small good," 

as well as idle pleasantries. Of this we may 
be sure, that ridicule fastens on the vulnerable 
points of a cause, and finds out the weak sides 
of an argument ; if those who resort to it some- 
times rely too much on its success, those who 
are chiefly annoyed by it almost always are so 
with reason, and cannot be too much on their 
guard against deserving it. Before we can 
laugh at a thing, its absurdity must at least be 
open and palpable to common apprehension. 
Ridicule is necessarily built on certain supposed 
facts, whether true or false, and on their incon- 
sistency with certain acknowledged maxims, 
whether right or wrong. It is, therefore, a fair 
test, if not of philosophical or abstract truth, 
at least of what is truth according to public 
opinion and common sense; for it can only 
expose to instantaneous contempt that which is 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



35 



condemned by public opinion, and is hostile to 
the common sense of mankind. Or, to put it 
differently, it is the test of the quantity of truth 
that there is in our favourite prejudices. To 
show how nearly allied wit is thought to be to 
truth, it is not unusual to say of any person — 
" Such a one is a man of sense, for though he 
said nothing, he laughed in the right place." — 
Alliteration comes in here under the head of a 
certain sort of verbal wit ; or, by pointing the 
expression, sometimes points the sense. Mr 
Grattan's wit or eloquence (I don't know by 
what name to call it) would be nothing with- 
out this accompaniment. Speaking of some 
ministers whom he did not like, he said, 
a Their only means of government are the 
guinea and the gallows." There can scarcely, 
it must be confessed, be a more effectual mode 
of political conversion than one of these applied 
to a man's friends, and the other to himself. 
The tine sarcasm of Junius on the effect of the 
supposed ingratitude of the Duke of Grafton at 
courts — The instance might be painful, but the 
principle would please " — notwithstanding the 
profound insight into human nature it implies, 
would hardly pass for wit without the allite- 
ration, as some poetry would hardly be acknow- 
ledged as such without the rhyme to clench it. 



36 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 

A quotation or a hackneyed phrase, dexterously 

turned or wrested to another purpose, has often 

the effect of the liveliest wit. An idle fellow 

who had only fourpence left in the world, 

which had been put by to pay for the baking 

some meat for his dinner, went and laid it out 

to buy a new string for a guitar. An old 

acquaintance, on hearing this story, repeated 

those lines out of the 'Allegro' — 

" And ever against eating cares 
Lap me in soft Lydian airs." 

The reply of the author of the periodical paper 
called the 6 World' to a lady at church, who seeing 
him look thoughtful, asked what he was thinking 
of — " The next World," — is a perversion of an 
established formula of language, something of the 
same kind. — Rhymes are sometimes a species of 
wit, where there is an alternate combination and 
resolution or decomposition of the elements of 
sound, contrary to our usual division and classi- 
fication of them in ordinary speech, not unlike the 
sudden separation and re-union of the component 
parts of the machinery in a pantomime. The 
author who excels infinitely the most in this way 
is the writer of 'Hudibras.' He also excels in the 
invention of single words and names, which have 
the effect of wit by sounding big, and meaning 
nothing : — " full of sound and fury, signifying 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



37 



nothing." But of the artifices of this author's 
burlesque style I shall have occasion to speak 
hereafter. — It is not always easy to distinguish 
between the wit of words and that of things, 
" For thin partitions do their bounds divide." 
Some of the late Mr Curran's hon mots, or jeux 
d f esprit, might be said to owe their birth to this 
sort of equivocal generation ; or were a happy 
mixture of verbal wit and a lively and pic- 
turesque fancy, of legal acuteness in detecting 
the variable applications of words, and of a 
mind apt at perceiving the ludicrous in external 
objects. " Do you see any thing ridiculous in 
this wig ?" said one of his brother judges to him. 
te Nothing but the head/' was the answer. Now 
here instantaneous advantage was taken of the 
slight technical ambiguity in the construction of 
language, and the matter-of-fact is flung into 
the scale as a thumping makeweight. After all, 
verbal and accidental strokes of wit, though the 
most surprising and laughable, are not the best 
and most lasting. That wit is the most refined 
and effectual, which is founded on the detection 
of unexpected likeness or distinction in things, 
rather than in words. It is more severe and 
galling, that is, it is more unpardonable though 
less surprising, in proportion as the thought 
suggested is more complete and satisfactory, 



38 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



from its being inherent in the nature of 
the things themselves. Hceret lateri lethalis 
arundo. Truth makes the greatest libel, and 
it is that which barbs the darts of wit. The 
Duke of Buckingham's saying, " Laws are 
not, like women, the worse for being old/ 9 
is an instance of a harmless truism and the 
utmost malice of wit united. This is, per* 
haps, what has been meant by the distinction 
between true and false wit. Mr Addison, indeed, 
goes so far as to make it the exclusive test of 
true wit that it will bear translation into another 
language, that is to say, that it does not depend 
at all on the form of expression. But this is by 
no means the case. Swift would hardly have 
allowed of such a strait-laced theory, to make 
havoc with his darling conundrums; though there 
is no one whose serious wit is more that of things, 
as opposed to a mere play either of words or 
fancy. I ought, I believe, to have noticed 
before, in speaking of the difference between wit 
and humour, that wit is often pretended absurdity, 
where the person overacts or exaggerates a certain 
part with a conscious design to expose it as if it 
were another person, as when Mandrake in the 
Twin Rivals says, " This glass is too big, carry 
it away, I'll drink out of the bottle." On the 
contrary, when Sir Hugh Evans says very 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



39 



innocently, " 'Od's plessed will, I will not be 
absent at the grace," though there is here a great 
deal of humour, there is no wit. This kind of 
wit of the humourist, where the person makes a 
butt of himself, and exhibits his own absurdities 
or foibles purposely in the most pointed and 
glaring lights, runs through the whole of 
the character of Falstaff, and is, in truth, the 
principle on which it is founded. It is an irony 
directed against oneself. Wit is, in fact, a 
voluntary act of the mind, or exercise of the in- 
vention, showing the absurd and ludicrous con- 
sciously, whether in ourselves or another. Cross- 
readings, where the blunders are designed, are 
wit ; but if any one were to light upon them 
through ignorance or accident, they would be 
merely ludicrous. 

It might be made an argument of the intrinsic 
superiority of poetry or imagination to wit, that 
the former does not admit of mere verbal com- 
binations. Whenever they do occur, they are 
uniformly blemishes. It requires something more 
solid and substantial to raise admiration or pas- 
sion. The general forms and aggregate masses 
of our ideas must be brought more into play, to 
give weight and magnitude. Imagination may 
be said to be the finding out something similar 
in things generally alike, or with like feelings 
attached to them, while wit principally aims at 



40 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



finding out something that seems the same, 
or amounts to a momentary deception where 
you least expected it, viz. in things totally 
opposite. The reason why more slight and 
partial, or merely accidental and nominal re- 
semblances, serve the purposes of wit, and 
indeed characterise its essence as a distinct 
operation and faculty of the mind, is, that the 
object of ludicrous poetry is naturally to let 
down and lessen ; and it is easier to let down 
than to raise up; to weaken than to strengthen; 
to disconnect our sympathy from passion and 
power, than to attach and rivet it to any object 
of grandeur or interest; to startle and shock our 
preconceptions, by incongruous and equivocal 
combinations, than to confirm, enforce, and ex- 
pand them by powerful and lasting associations 
of ideas, or striking and true analogies. A slight 
cause is sufficient to produce a slight effect. 
To be indifferent or sceptical, requires no effort ; 
to be enthusiastic and in earnest, requires a 
strong impulse, and collective power. Wit and 
humour (comparatively speaking, or taking the 
extremes to judge of the gradations by) appeal 
to our indolence, our vanity, our weakness, and 
insensibility; serious and impassioned poetry 
appeals to our strength, our magnanimity, our 
virtue, and humanity. Anything is sufficient 
to heap contempt upon an object; even the 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



41 



bare suggestion of a mischievous allusion to 
what is improper, dissolves the whole charm, 
and puts an end to our admiration of the 
sublime or beautiful. Reading the finest pas- 
sage in Milton's 6 Paradise Lost' in a false tone, 
will make it seem insipid and absurd. The 
cavilling at, or invidiously pointing out, a few 
slips of the pen, will embitter the pleasure, or 
alter our opinion of a whole work, and make us 
throw it down in disgust. The critics are aware 
of this vice and infirmity in our nature, and 
play upon it with periodical success. The 
meanest weapons are strong enough for this 
kind of warfare, and the meanest hands can 
wield them. Spleen can subsist on any kind 
of food. The shadow of a doubt, the hint of 
an inconsistency, a word, a look, a syllable, 
will destroy our best-formed convictions. What 
puts this argument in as striking a point of 
view as anything, is the nature of parody or 
burlesque, the secret of which lies merely in 
transposing or applying at a venture to any- 
thing, or to the lowest objects, that which is 
applicable only to certain given things, or to 
the highest matters. "From the sublime to 
the ridiculous, there is but one step." The 
slightest want of unity of impression destroys 
the sublime; the detection of the smallest 



42 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



incongruity is an infallible ground to rest the 
ludicrous upon. But in serious poetry, which 
aims at rivetting our affections, every blow 
must tell home. The missing a single time is 
fatal, and undoes the spell. We see how 
difficult it is to sustain a continued flight of 
impressive sentiment: how easy it must be then 
to travestie or burlesque it, to flounder into 
nonsense, and be witty by playing the fool. It 
is a common mistake, however, to suppose that 
parodies degrade, or imply a stigma on the 
subject : on the contrary, they in general imply 
something serious or sacred in the originals. 
Without this, they would be good for nothing ; 
for the immediate contrast would be wanting, 
and with this they are sure to tell. The best 
parodies are, accordingly, the best and most 
striking things reversed. Witness the common 
travesties of Homer and Virgil. Mr Canning's 
court parodies on Mr Southey's popular odes 
are also an instance in point (I do not know 
which were the cleverest) ; and the best of the 
* Rejected Addresses ' is the parody on Crabbe, 
though I do not certainly think that Crabbe is 
the most ridiculous poet now living. 

Lear and the Fool are the sublimest instance 
I know of passion and wit united, or of 
imagination unfolding the most tremendous 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



43 



sufferings, and of burlesque on passion playing 
with it, aiding and relieving its intensity by the 
most pointed, but familiar and indifferent illus- 
trations of the same thing in different objects, 
and on a meaner scale. The Fool's reproaching 
Lear with " making his daughters his mothers," 
his snatches of proverbs and old ballads, " The 
hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, that it 
had its head bit off by its young/' and "Whoop 
jug, I know when the horse follows the cart," 
are a running commentary of trite truisms, 
pointing out the extreme folly of the infatuated 
old monarch, and in a manner reconciling us to 
its inevitable consequences. 

Lastly, there is a wit of sense and observation, 
which consists in the acute illustration of good 
sense and practical wisdom by means of some 
far-fetched conceit or quaint imagery. The 
matter is sense, but the form is wit. Thus the 
lines in Pope— 

" Tis with our judgments as our watches, none 
Go just alike ; yet each believes his own — " 

are witty rather than poetical; because the 
truth they convey is a mere dry observation on 
human life, without elevation or enthusiasm, 
and the illustration of it is of that quaint and 
familiar kind that is merely curious and fanci* 
ful. Cowley is an instance of the same kind in 



44 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



almost all his writings. Many of the jests and 
"witticisms in the best comedies are moral apho- 
risms and rules for the conduct of life, spark- 
ling with wit and fancy in the mode of expres- 
sion. The ancient philosophers also abounded 
in the same kind of wit, in telling home truths 
in the most unexpected manner . — In this sense 
iEsop was the greatest wit and moralist that 
ever lived. Ape and slave, he looked askance 
at human nature, and beheld its weaknesses 
and errors transferred to another species. Vice 
and virtue were to him as plain as any objects 
of sense. He saw in man a talking, absurd, 
obstinate, proud, angry animal; and clothed 
these abstractions with wings, or a beak, or tail, 
or claws, or long ears, as they appeared 
embodied in these hieroglyphics in the brute 
creation. His moral philosophy is natural 
history. He makes an ass bray wisdom, and a 
frog croak humanity. The store of moral truth, 
and the fund of invention in exhibiting it in 
eternal forms, palpable and intelligible, and 
delightful to children and grown persons, and 
to all ages and nations, are almost miraculous. 
The invention of a fable is to me the most en- 
viable exertion of human genius : it is the dis- 
covering a truth to which there is no clue, and 
which, when once found out, can never be for- 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



45 



gotten. I would rather have been the author of 
( ^Esop's Fables 9 than of 6 Euclid's Elements ! 9 
That popular entertainment, Punch and the 
Puppet-show, owes part of its irresistible and 
universal attraction to nearly the same principle 
of inspiring inanimate and mechanical agents 
with sense and consciousness. The drollery 
and wit of a piece of wood is doubly droll and 
farcical. Punch is not merry in himself, but 
"he is the cause of heartfelt mirth in other 
men." The wires and pulleys that govern his 
motions are conductors to carry off the spleen, 
and all " that perilous stuff that weighs upon the 
heart." If we see a number of people turning 
the corner of a street, ready to burst with 
secret satisfaction, and with their faces bathed 
in laughter, we know what is the matter — that 
they are just come from a puppet-show. "Who 
can see three little painted, patched-up figures, 
no bigger than one's thumb, strut, squeak, and 
gibber, sing, dance, chatter, scold, knock one 
another about the head, give themselves airs 
of importance, and iC imitate humanity most 
abominably," without laughing immoderately? 
We overlook the farce and mummery of human 
life in little, and for nothing ; and what is still 
better, it costs them who have to play in it 
nothing. We place the mirth, and glee, and 



46 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



triumph, to our own account; and we know 
that the bangs and blows they have received go 
for nothing, as soon as the showman puts them 
up in his box and inarches off quietly with 
them, as jugglers of a less amusing description 
sometimes march off with the wrongs and rights 
of mankind in their pockets ! I have heard no 
bad judge of such matters say, that " he liked 
a comedy better than a tragedy, a farce better 
than a comedy, a pantomime better than a 
farce, but a puppet-show best of all/' I look 
upon it, that he who invented puppet-shows 
was a greater benefactor to his species, than he 
who invented Operas ! 

I shall conclude this imperfect and desultory 
sketch of wit and humour with Barrow's cele- 
brated description of the same subject. He 
says, " — But first it may be demanded, what 
the thing we speak of is, or what this facetious- 
ness doth import ; to which question I might 
reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the 
definition of a man — 'tis that which we all see 
and know; and one better apprehends what it 
is by acquaintance than I can inform him by 
description. It is, indeed, a thing so versatile 
and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, 
so many postures, so many garbs, so variously 
apprehended by several eyes and judgments, 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



47 



that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and 
certain notice thereof, than to make a portrait 
of Proteus, or to define the figure of fleeting 
air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a 
known story, or in seasonable application of a 
trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale ; 
sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, 
taking advantage from the ambiguity of their 
sense, or the affinity of their sound ; sometimes 
it is wrapped in a dress of luminous expression ; 
sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude. 
Sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a 
smart answer ; in a quirkish reason ; in a shrewd 
intimation ; in cunningly diverting or cleverly 
restoring an objection : sometimes it is couched 
in a bold scheme of speech ; in a tart irony ; in 
a lusty hyperbole ; in a startling metaphor ; in 
a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in 
acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical repre- 
sentation of persons or things, a counterfeit 
speech, a mimical look or gesture passeth for 
it ; sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes 
a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being; some- 
times it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon 
what is strange; sometimes from a crafty 
wresting obvious matter to the purpose ; often 
it consisteth in one knows not what, and 
springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its 



48 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR* 



ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being 
answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy 
and windings of language. It is, in short, a 
manner of speaking out of the simple and plain 
way (such as reason teacheth and knoweth 
things by), which by a pretty surprising 
uncouthness in conceit or expression doth af- 
fect and amuse the fancy, showing in it 
some wonder, and breathing some delight 
thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying 
a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special 
felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and 
reach of wit more than vulgar : it seeming to 
argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can 
fetch in remote conceits applicable ; a notable 
skill that he can dextrously accommodate them 
to a purpose before him, together with a lively 
briskness of humour, not apt to damp those 
sportful flashes of imagination. (Whence in 
Aristotle such persons are termed tvih%ioi, 
dexterous men, and ivrpowot, men of facile or 
versatile manners, who can easily turn them- 
selves to all things, or turn all things to them- 
selves). It also procureth delight by gratifying 
curiosity with its rareness or semblance of diffi- 
culty (as monsters, not for their beauty but 
their rarity ; as juggling tricks, not for their 
use but their abstruseness, are beheld with 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



49 



pleasure) ; by diverting the mind from its road 
of serious thoughts ; by instilling gaiety and airi- 
ness of spirit ; by provoking to such dispositions 
of spirit, in way of emulation or complaisance, 
and by seasoning matter, otherwise distasteful 
or insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful 
tang." — Barrow's Works, Serm. 14. 

I will only add, by way of general caution, 
that there is nothing more ridiculous than 
laughter without a cause, nor anything more 
troublesome than what are called laughing 
people. A professed laugher is as contempt- 
ible and tiresome a character as a professed 
wit : the one is always contriving something 
to laugh at, the other is always laughing at 
nothing. An excess of levity is as imperti- 
nent as an excess of gravity. A character of 
this sort is well personified by Spenser, in the 
4 Damsel of the Idle Lake' — 

" who did assay 

To laugh at shaking of the leaves light." 

Any one must be mainly ignorant or thought- 
less, who is surprised at everything he sees; 
or wonderfully conceited, who expects every- 
thing to conform to his standard of pro- 
priety. Clowns and idiots laugh on all occa- 
sions ; and the common failing of wishing to 
be thought satirical often runs through whole 

E 



50 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR, 



families in country places, to the great annoy- 
ance of their neighbours. To be struck with 
incongruity in whatever comes before us, does 
not argue great comprehension or refinement 
of perception, but rather a looseness and flip- 
jDancy of mind and temper, which prevents 
the individual from connecting any two ideas 
steadily or consistently together. It is owing 
to a natural crudity and precipitateness of the 
imagination, which assimilates nothing pro- 
perly to itself. People who are always laugh- 
ing, at length laugh on the wrong side of their 
faces ; for they cannot get others to laugh with 
them. In like manner, an affectation of wit 
by degrees hardens the heart, and spoils good 
company and good manners. A perpetual 
succession of good things puts an end to com- 
mon conversation. There is no answer to a 
jest, but another; and even where the ball can 
be kept up in this way without ceasing, it tires 
the patience of the by-standers, and runs the 
speakers out of breath. Wit is the salt of 
conversation, not the food. 

The four chief names for comic humour out 
of our own language are Aristophanes and Lu- 
cian among the ancients, Moliere and Rabelais 
among the moderns. Of the two first I shall 
say, for I know but little. I should have liked 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



51 



Aristophanes better if he had treated Socrates 
less scurvily, for he has treated him most scur- 
vily both as to wit and argument. His Plutus 
and his Birds are striking instances, the one 
of dry humour, the other of airy fancy. — Lu- 
cian is a writer who appears to deserve his full 
fame : he has the licentious and extravagant 
wit of Rabelais, but directed more uniformly 
to a purpose; and his comic productions are 
interspersed with beautiful and eloquent de- 
scriptions, full of sentiment, such as the exqui- 
site account of the fable of the halcyon put into 
the mouth of Socrates, and the heroic eulogy 
on Bacchus, which is conceived in the highest 
strain of glowing panegyric. 

The two other authors I proposed to men- 
tion are modern, and French. Moliere, how- 
ever, in the spirit of his writings, is almost as 
much an English as a French author — quite a 
barbare in all in which he really excelled. He 
was unquestionably one of the greatest comic 
geniuses that ever lived ; a man of infinite wit, 
gaiety, and invention — full of life, laughter, 
and whim. But it cannot be denied that his 
plays are in general mere farces, without scru- 
pulous adherence to nature, refinement of cha- 
racter, or common probability. The plots of 
several of them could not be carried on for 



52 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



a moment without a perfect collusion between 
the parties to wink at contradictions, and act 
in defiance of the evidence of their senses. For 
instance, take the 6 Medecin malgre lui 9 (< The 
Mock Doctor'), in which a common wood- 
cutter takes upon himself, and is made suc- 
cessfully to support through a whole play, the 
character of a learned physician, without ex- 
citing the least suspicion ; and yet notwith- 
standing the absurdity of the plot, it is one of 
the most laughable and truly comic produc- 
tions that can well be imagined. The rest of 
his lighter pieces, the 6 Bourgeois GentilhommeJ 
( Monsieur JPourceaugnac, 9 George 6 Dandin, 9 
(or 'Barnaby Brittle/) &c. are of the same 
description — gratuitous assumptions of cha- 
racter, and fanciful and outrageous caricatures 
of nature. He indulges at his peril in the ut- 
most license of burlesque exaggeration ; and 
gives a loose to the intoxication of his animal 
spirits. With respect to his two most laboured 
comedies, the i Tartuffe' and ( Misanthrope/ I 
confess that I find them rather hard to get 
through : they have much of the improbability 
and extravagance of the others, united with the 
endless common-place prosing of French de- 
clamation. What can exceed, for example, the 
absurdity of the 6 Misanthrope/ who leaves his 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



53 



mistress, after every proof of her attachment 
and constancy, for no other reason than that 
she will not submit to the technical formality of 
going to live with him in a wilderness ? The 
characters, again, which Celimene gives of her 
female friends, near the opening of the play, 
are admirable satires, (as good as Pope's cha- 
racters of women,) but not exactly in the spirit 
of comic dialogue. The strictures of Rous- 
seau on this play, in his 6 Letter to D'Alem- 
bert/ are a fine specimen of the best philoso- 
phical criticism. — The same remarks apply in 
a greater degree to the ' Tartuffe.' The long 
speeches and reasonings in this play tire one 
almost to death : they may be very good logic, 
or rhetoric, or philosophy, or anything but 
comedy. If each of the parties had retained a 
special pleader to speak his sentiments, they 
could not have appeared more verbose or intri- 
cate. The improbability of the character of 
Orgon is wonderful. This play is in one point 
of view invaluable, as a lasting monument of 
the credulity of the French to all verbal pro- 
fessions of wisdom or virtue ; and its existence 
can only be accounted for from that astonish- 
ing and tyrannical predominance which words 
exercise over things in the mind of every 
Frenchman. The 6 Ecole des FemmesJ from 



54 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



which Wycherley has borrowed his c Country 
Wife/ with the true spirit of original genius, 
is, in my judgment, the master-piece of Mo- 
liere. The set speeches in the original play, it 
is true, would not be borne on the English 
stage, nor indeed on the French, but that they 
are carried off by the verse. The 6 Critique de 
VEcole des Femmes 9 the dialogue of which is 
prose, is written in a very different style. 
Among other things, this little piece contains 
an exquisite, and almost unanswerable defence 
of the superiority of Gomedy over tragedy. 
Molikre was to be excused for taking this side 
of the question. 

A writer of some pretensions among our- 
selves has reproached the French with "an 
equal want of books and men." There is a 
common French print, in which Moliere is re- 
presented reading one of his plays in the pre- 
sence of the celebrated Ninon de l'Enclos, to 
a circle of the wits and first men of his own 
time. Among these are the great Corneille; 
the tender, faultless Racine ; Fontaine, the art- 
less old man, unconscious of immortality ; the 
accomplished St Evremond; the Duke de la 
Rochefoucault, the severe anatomiser of the 
human breast ; Boileau, the flatterer of courts 
and judge of men ! Were these men nothing ? 



ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 



55 



they have passed for men (and great ones) 
hitherto, and though the prejudice is an old 
one, I should hope it may still last our time. 

Rabelais is another name that might have 
saved this unjust censure. The wise sayings 
and heroic deeds of Gargantua and Panta- 
gruel ought not to be set down as nothing. 
I have already spoken my mind at large of 
this author ; but I cannot help thinking of him 
here, sitting in his easy chair, with an eye 
languid with excess of mirth, his lip quivering 
with a new-born conceit, and wiping his beard 
after a well-seasoned jest, with his pen held 
carelessly in his hand, his wine-flagons, and 
his books of law, of school divinity, and physic 
before him, which were his jest-books, whence 
he drew endless stores of absurdity ; laughing 
at the world and enjoying it by turns, and 
making the world laugh with him again, for 
the last three hundred years, at his teeming wit 
and its own prolific follies. Even to those 
who have never read his works, the name of 
Rabelais is a cordial to the spirits, and the 
mention of it cannot consist with gravity or 
spleen ! 



LECTURE II. 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

Dr Johnson thought Shakspeare's comedies 
better than his tragedies, and gives as a reason, 
that he was more at home in the one than in 
the other. That comedies should be written in 
a more easy and careless vein than tragedies, is 
but natural. This is only saying that a comedy 
is not so serious a thing as a tragedy. But 
that he showed a greater mastery in the one 
than in the other, I cannot allow, nor is it 
generally felt. The labour which the Doctor 
thought it cost Shakspeare to write his tra- 
gedies, only showed the labour which it cost 
the critic in reading them, that is, his general 
indisposition to sympathise heartily and spon- 
taneously with works of high-wrought passion 
or imagination. There is not in any part of 
this author's writings the slightest trace of his 
having ever been " smit with the love of sacred 
song," except some passages in Pope. His 
habitually morbid temperament and saturnine 
turn of thought required that the string should 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 57 



rather be relaxed than tightened, that the weight 
upon the mind should rather be taken off than 
have anything added to it. There was a 
sluggish moroseness about his moral consti- 
tution that refused to be roused to any keen 
agony of thought, and that was not very safely 
to be trifled with in lighter matters, though this 
last was allowed to pass off as the most pardon- 
able offence against the gravity of his preten- 
sions. It is in fact the established rule at 
present, in these cases, to speak highly of the 
Doctor's authority, and to dissent from almost 
every one of his critical decisions. For my 
own part, I so far consider this preference 
given to the comic genius of the poet as erro- 
neous and unfounded, that I should say that 
he is the only tragic poet in the world in the 
highest sense, as being on a par with, and the 
same as Nature, in her greatest heights and 
depths of action and suffering. There is but 
one who durst walk within that mighty circle, 
treading the utmost bound of nature and pas- 
sion, showing us the dread abyss of woe in all 
its ghastly shapes and colours, and laying 
open all the faculties of the human soul to 
act, to think, and suffer, in direst extremities ; 
whereas, I think, on the other hand, that in 
comedy, though his talents there too were as 



58 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

wonderful as they were delightful, yet that 
there were some before him, others on a level 
with him, and many close behind him. I can- 
not help thinking, for instance, that Moliere 
was as great, or a greater comic genius than 
Shakspeare, though assuredly I do not think 
that Racine was as great, or a greater tragic 
genius. I think that both Rabelais and Cer- 
vantes, the one in the power of ludicrous 
description, the other in the invention and per- 
fect keeping of comic character, excelled Shak- 
speare ; that is, they would have been greater 
men, if they had had equal power with him 
over the stronger passions. For my own read- 
ing, I like Vanbrugh's ' City Wives ' Confe- 
deracy ' as well, or ("not to speak it profanely ") 
better than the 6 Merry Wives of Windsor,' and 
Congreve's ' Way of the World/ as well as the 
c Comedy of Errors ' or ( Love's Labour Lost.' 
But I cannot say that I know of any tragedies 
in the world that make even a tolerable ap- 
proach to ' Hamlet/ or 'Lear,' or 'Othello/ 
or some others, either in the sum total of their 
effect, or in their complete distinctness from 
everything else, by which they take not only 
unquestioned, but undivided possession of the 
mind, and form a class, a world by themselves 
mingling with all our thoughts like a second 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 59 



being. Other tragedies tell for more or less, 
are good, bad, or indifferent, as they have more 
or less excellence of a kind common to them 
with others : but these stand alone by them- 
selves ; they have nothing common-place in 
them; they are a new power in the imagi- 
nation, they tell for their whole amount, they 
measure from the ground. There is not only 
nothing so good (in my judgment) as 6 Hamlet/ 
or 'Lear/ or 6 Othello/ or 'Macbeth/ but 
there is nothing like ' Hamlet/ or 1 Lear/ or 
* Othello/ or ' Macbeth/ There is nothing, I 
believe, in the majestic Corneille, equal to the 
stern pride of 6 Coriolanus \ ' or which gives such 
an idea of the crumbling in pieces of the Roman 
grandeur, "like an unsubstantial pageant faded/' 
as the i Antony and Cleopatra/ But to match 
the best serious comedies, such as Moliere's 
'Misanthrope' and his 'Tartuffe/ we must go to 
Shakspeare's tragic characters, the Timon of 
Athens or honest Iago, when we shall more 
than succeed. He put his strength into his 
tragedies, and played with comedy. He was 
greatest in what was greatest 5 and his forte 
was not trifling, according to the opinion here 
combated, even though he might do that as 
well as anybody else, unless he could do it 
better than anybody else. I would not be 



60 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

understood to say that there are not scenes or 
whole characters in Shakspeare equal in wit 
and drollery to anything upon record. Falstaff 
alone is an instance which, if I would, I could 
not get over. " He is the leviathan of all the 
creatures of the author's comic genius, and 
tumbles about his unwieldy bulk in an ocean 
of wit and humour." But in general it will 
be found (if I am not mistaken), that even in 
the very best of these the spirit of humanity 
and the fancy of the poet greatly prevail over 
the mere wit and satire, and that we sympathise 
with his characters oftener than we laugh at 
them. His ridicule wants the sting of ill- 
nature. He had hardly such a thing as spleen 
in his composition. Falstaff himself is so great 
a joke, rather from his being so huge a mass 
of enjoyment than of absurdity. His re-ap- 
pearance in the 6 Merry Wives of Windsor ? is 
not " a consummation devoutly to be wished/' 
for we do not take pleasure in the repeated 
triumphs over him. Mercutio's quips and 
banter upon his friends show amazing gaiety, 
frankness, and volubility of tongue, but we 
think no more of them when the poet takes 
the words out of his mouth, and gives the 
description of Queen Mab. Touchstone, again, 
is a shrewd biting fellow, a lively, mischievous 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 61 



wag: but still what are his gibing sentences 
and chopped logic to the fine moralising vein 
of the fantastical Jaques, stretched beneath 
" the shade of melancholy boughs ?" Nothing. 
That is, Shakspeare was a greater poet than 
wit; his imagination was the leading and 
master-quality of his mind, which was always 
ready to soar into its native element : the 
ludicrous was only secondary and subordinate. 
In the comedies of gallantry and intrigue, with 
what freshness and delight we come to the 
serious and romantic parts! What a relief 
they are to the mind, after those of mere ribal- 
dry or mirth ! Those in ' Twelfth Night/ for 
instance, and 6 Much Ado about Nothing/ 
where Olivia and Hero are concerned, throw 
even Malvolio and Sir Toby, and Benedick 
and Beatrice, into the shade. They "give a 
very echo to the seat where love is throned/' 
What he has said of music might be said of 
his own poetry — 

" Oh ! it came o'er my ear like the sweet south 
That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
Stealing and giving odour." 

How poor, in general, what a falling-ofF, 
these parts seem in mere comic authors ; how 
ashamed we are of them ; and how fast we 
hurry the blank verse over, that we may get 



62 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

upon safe ground again, and recover our good 
opinion of the author ! A striking and lament- 
able instance of this may be found (by any 
one who chooses) in the high-flown speeches 
in Sir Richard Steele's f Conscious Lovers/ 
As good an example as any of this informing 
and redeeming power in our author's genius 
might be taken from the comic scenes in both 
parts of Henry IV. Nothing can go much 
lower in intellect or morals than many of the 
characters. Here are knaves and fools in 
abundance, of the meanest order, and stripped 
stark-naked. But genius, like charity, i6 covers 
a multitude of sins \ " we pity as much as we 
despise them ; in spite of our disgust we like 
them, because they like themselves, and because 
we are made to sympathise with them ; and 
the ligament, fine as it is, which links them 
to humanity, is never broken. Who would 
quarrel with Wart, or Feeble, or Mouldy, or 
Bull-calf, or even with Pistol, Nym, or Bar- 
dolph? None but a hypocrite. The severe 
censurers of the morals of imaginary cha- 
racters can generally find a hole for their own 
vices to creep out at, and yet do not perceive 
how it is that the imperfect and even deformed 
characters in Shakspeare's plays, as done to 
the life, by forming a part of our personal 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 63 

consciousness, claim our personal forgiveness, 
and suspend or evade our moral judgment, by 
bribing our self-love to side with them. Not 
to do so, is not morality, but affectation, 
stupidity, or ill-nature. I have more sympathy 
with one of Shakspeare's pick-purses, Gadshill 
or Peto, than I can possibly have with any 
member of the Society for the Suppression of 
Vice, and would by no means assist to deliver 
the one into the hands of the other. Those 
who cannot be persuaded to draw a veil ove 
the foibles of ideal characters, may be sus- 
pected of wearing a mask over their own ! 
Again, in point of understanding and attain- 
ments, Shallow sinks low enough ; and yet his 
cousin Silence is a foil to him ; he is the 
shadow of a shade, glimmers on the very 
verge of downright imbecility, and totters on 
the brink of nothing. " He has been merry 
twice and once ere now," and is hardly per- 
suaded to break his silence in a song. Shallow 
has " heard the chimes at midnight," and 
.roared out glees and catches at taverns and 
inns of court, when he was young. So, at 
least, he tells his cousin Silence, and Falstaff 
encourages the loftiness of his pretensions. 
Shallow would be thought a great man among 
his dependents and followers; Silence is nobody 



64 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 



— not even in his own opinion; yet he sits in 
the orchard, and eats his carraways and pippins 
among the rest. Shakspeare takes up the 
meanest subjects with the same tenderness that 
we do an insect's wing, and would not kill a 
fly. To give a more particular instance of 
what I mean, I will take the inimitable and 
affecting, though most absurd and ludicrous 
dialogue, between Shallow and Silence, on the 
death of old Double. 

" Shallow. Come on, come on, come on ; give me 
your hand, sir ; give me your hand, sir ; an early stirrer, 
by the rood. And how doth my good cousin Silence ? 

Silence, Good morrow, good cousin Shallow. 

Shallow, And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow ? 
and your fairest daughter, and mine, my god-daughter 
Ellen? 

Silence, Alas, a black ouzel, cousin Shallow. 

Shallow, By yea and nay, sir ; I dare say, my cousin 
William is become a good scholar : he is at Oxford still, 
is he not ? 

Silence. Indeed, sir, to my cost. 

Shallow. He must then to the inns of court shortly. 
I was once of Clement's inn ; where, I think, they will 
talk of mad Shallow yet. 

Silence. You were called lusty Shallow then, cousin. 

Shallow, I was called anything, and I would have done 
anything indeed, and roundly too. There was I, and 
little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Bare, 
and Francis Pick bone, and Will Squele, a Cotlswold 
man, you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the 
inns of court again ; and, I may say to you, we knew 
where the bonarobas were, and had the best of them all 



ON SHAK9PEARE AND BEN JONSON. 65 

at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, 
a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. 

Silence. This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon 
about soldiers? 

Shallow. The same Sir John, the very same : I saw 
him break Schoggan's head at the court-gate, when he 
was a crack, not thus high ; and the very same day did I 
fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind 
Gray's-inn. O, the mad days that I have spent ! and to 
see how many of mine old acquaintances are dead ! 

Silence. We shall all follow, cousin. 

Shallow, Certain, 'tis certain, very sure, very sure : 
death (as the Psalmist saith) is certain to all, all shall die 
— How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair ? 

Silence. Truly, cousin, I was not there. 

Shallow. Death is certain. Is old Double of your 
town living yet ? 

Silence. Dead, Sir. 

Shallow. Dead \ see, see ! he drew a good bow ; and 
dead ? he shot a fine shoot. John of Gaunt loved him 
well, and betted much money on his head. Dead ! he 
would have clapped i' th' clout at twelve score ; and 
carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and a half, that it 
would have done a man's heart good to see.— How a 
score of ewes now ? 

Silence. Thereafter as they be : a score of good ewes 
may be worth ten pounds 

Shallow. And is old Double dead ?" 
There is not anything more characteristic than 
this in all Shakspeare. A finer sermon on mor- 
tality was never preached. We see the frail con- 
dition of human life, and the weakness of the 
human understanding in Shallow's reflections on 
it; who, while the past is sliding from beneath 

F 



66 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

his feet, still clings to the present. The meanest 
circumstances are shown through an atmosphere 
of abstraction that dignifies them : their very in- 
significance makes them more affecting, for they 
instantly put a check on our aspiring thoughts, 
and remind us that, seen through that dim per- 
spective, the difference between the great and 
little, the wise and foolish, is not much. " One 
touch of nature makes the whole world kin 
and old Double, though his exploits had been 
greater, could but have had his day. There is 
a pathetic naivete mixed up with Shallow's com- 
mon-place reflections and impertinent digres- 
sions. The reader laughs (as well he may) in 
reading the passage, but he lays down the book 
to think. The wit, however diverting, is social 
and humane. But this is not the distinguish- 
ing characteristic of wit, which is generally pro- 
voked by folly, and spends its venom upon vice. 

The fault, then, of Shakspeare's comic Muse 
is, in my opinion, that it is too good-natured 
and magnanimous. It mounts above its quarry. 
It is " apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of 
nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes :" but it 
does not take the highest pleasure in making 
human nature look as mean, as ridiculous, and 
contemptible as possible. It is in this respect, 
chiefly, that it differs from the comedy of a 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 67 



later, and (what is called) a more refined period. 
Genteel comedy is the comedy of fashionable 
life, and of artificial character and manners. 
The most pungent ridicule is that which is di- 
rected to mortify vanity, and to expose affecta- 
tion ; but vanity and affectation, in their most 
exorbitant and studied excesses, are the ruling 
principles of society, only in a highly advanced 
state of civilization and manners. Man can 
hardly be said to be a truly contemptible ani- 
mal, till, from the facilities of general inter- 
course, and the progress of example and opinion, 
he becomes the ape of the extravagances of other 
^ men. The keenest edge of satire is required to 
\ distinguish between the true and false pretensions 
\ to taste and elegance ; its lash is laid on with 
the utmost severity, to drive before it the com- 
mon herd of knaves and fools, not to lacerate 
and terrify the single stragglers. In a word, it 
is when folly is epidemic, and vice worn as a 
mark of distinction, that all the malice of wit 
and humour is called out and justified to detect 
the imposture, and prevent the contagion from 
spreading. The fools in Wycherley and Con- 
greve are of their own, or one another's ma- 
king, and deserve to be well scourged into com 
mon sense and decency: the fools in Shakspeare 
are of his own or nature's making; and it would 



68 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

be unfair to probe to the quick, or hold up to 
unqualified derision, the faults which are invo- 
luntary and incorrigible, or those which you 
yourself encourage and exaggerate, from the 
pleasure you take in witnessing them. Our 
later comic writers represent a state of manners, 
in which to be a man of wit and pleasure about 
town was become the fashion, and in which the 
swarms of egregious pretenders in both kinds 
openly kept one another in countenance, and 
were become a public nuisance. Shakspeare, 
living in a state of greater rudeness and sim- 
plicity, chiefly gave certain characters which 
were a kind of grotesques, or solitary excres- 
cences growing up out of their native soil with- 
out affectation, and which he undertook kindly 
to pamper for the public entertainment. For 
instance, Sir Andrew Aguecheek is evidently a 
creature of the poet's own fancy. The author 
lends occasion to his absurdity to show itself as 
much as he pleases, devises antics for him which 
would not enter into his own head, makes him 
"go to church in a galliard, and return home in 
a coranto;" adds fuel to his folly, or throws cold 
water on his courage; makes his puny extrava- 
gances venture out or slink into corners without 
asking his leave ; encourages them into indis- 
creet luxuriance, or checks them in the bud^ 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 69 



just as it suits him for the jest's sake. The gra- 
tification of the fancy, 66 and furnishing matter 
for innocent mirth/' are, therefore, the chief 
object of this and other characters like it, ra- 
ther than reforming the moral sense, or indulg- 
ing our personal spleen. But Tattle and Spark- 
ish, who are fops cast not in the mould of fancy, 
but of fashion, who have a tribe of forerunners and 
followers, who catch certain diseases of the mind 
on purpose to communicate the infection, and 
are screened in their preposterous eccentricities 
by their own conceit and by the world's opinion, 
are entitled to no quarter, and receive none. 
They think themselves objects of envy and 
admiration, and on that account are doubly 
objects of our contempt and ridicule. — We find 
that the scenes of Shakspeare's comedies are 
mostly laid in the country, or are transferable 
there at pleasure. The genteel comedy exists 
only in towns, and crowds of borrowed charac- 
ters, who copy others as the satirist copies 
them, and who are only seen to be despised. 
"All beyond Hyde Park is a desert" to it: 
while there the pastoral and poetic comedy be- 
gins to vegetate and flourish, unpruned, idle, 
and fantastic. It is hard to "lay waste a coun- 
try gentleman" in a state of nature, whose hu- 
mours may have run a little wild or to seed, or 



70 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSOX, 

to lay violent hands on a young booby 'squire* 
whose absurdities have not yet arrived at years 
of discretion : but my Lord Foppington, who is 
4 the prince of coxcombs," and "proud of being 
at the head of so prevailing a party," deserves 
his fate. I am not for going so far as to pro- 
nounce Shakspeare's " manners damnable, be- 
cause he had not seen the court f but I think 
that comedy does not find its richest harvest till 
individual infirmities have passed into general 
manners, and it is the example of courts, chiefly, 
that stamps folly with credit and currency > or 
glosses over vice with meretricious lustre. I 
conceive, therefore, that the golden period of 
our comedy was just after the age of Charles II, 
when the town first became tainted with the 
affectation of the manners and conversation of 
fashionable life, and before the distinction be- 
tween rusticity and elegance, art and nature, 
was lost (as it afterwards was) in a general dif- 
fusion of knowledge, and the reciprocal advan- 
tages of civil intercourse. It is to be remarked, 
that the union of the three gradations of artifi- 
cial elegance and courtly accomplishments in 
one class, of the affectation of them in another, 
and of absolute rusticity in a third, forms the 
highest point of perfection of the comedies of 
this period, as we may see in Vanbrugh's Lord 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 71 

Foppington, Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, and Miss 
Hoyden ; Lady Townly, Count Basset, and John 
Moody; in Congreve's Millamant, Lady Wish^ 
fort, Witwoud, Sir Wilful Witwoud, and the 
rest. 

In another point of view, or with respect 
to that part of comedy which relates to gal- 
lantry and intrigue, the difference between 
Shakspeare's comic heroines and those of a later 
period may be referred to the same distinction 
between natural and artificial life, between the 
world of fancy and the world of fashion. The 
refinements of romantic passion arise out of the 
imagination brooding over " airy nothing/' or 
over a favourite object, where "love's golden 
shaft hath killed the flock of all affections else:" 
whereas the refinements of this passion in gen- 
teel comedy, or in every-day life, may be said to 
arise out of repeated observation and experience, 
diverting and frittering away the first impres- 
sions of things by a multiplicity of objects, and 
producing, not enthusiasm, but fastidiousness or 
giddy dissipation. For the one a comparatively 
rude age and strong feelings are best fitted ; for 
" there the mind must minister to itself :" to the 
other, the progress of society and a knowledge 
of the world are essential ; for here the effect 
does not depend on leaving the mind concen- 



72 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

tred in itself, but on the wear and tear of the 
heart, amidst the complex and rapid movements 
of the artificial machinery of society, and the 
arbitrary subjection of the natural course of the 
affections to every the slightest fluctuation of 
fashion, caprice, or opinion. Thus Olivia, in 
6 Twelfth Night/ has but one admirer of equal 
rank with herself, and but one love, to whom 
she innocently plights her hand and heart; or if 
she had a thousand lovers, she would be the sole 
object of their adoration and burning vows, 
without a rival. The heroine of romance and 
poetry sits secluded in the bowers of fancy, sole 
queen and arbitress of all hearts; and as the 
character is one of imagination, "of solitude 
and melancholy musing born," so it may be 
best drawn from the imagination. Millamant, 
in the ' Way of the World/ on the contrary, 
who is the fine lady or heroine of comedy, has 
so many lovers, that she surfeits on admiration, 
till it becomes indifferent to her ; so many ri- 
vals, that she is forced to put on a thousand airs 
of languid affectation to mortify and vex them 
more ; so many offers, that she at last gives her 
hand to the man of her heart, rather to escape 
the persecution of their addresses, and out of 
levity and disdain, than from any serious choice 
of her own. This is a comic character ; its es* 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 73 



sence consists in making light of things from fa- 
miliarity and use, and as it is formed by habit 
and outward circumstances, so it requires actual 
observation, and an acquaintance with the modes 
of artificial life, to describe it with the utmost 
possible grace and precision. Congreve, who 
had every other opportunity, was but a young 
man when he wrote this character 5 and that 
makes the miracle the greater. 

I do not, in short, consider comedy as exactly 
an affair of the heart or the imagination ; and it 
is for this reason only that I think Shakspeare's 
comedies deficient. I do not, however, wish to 
give a preference of any comedies over his ; but 
I do perceive a difference between his comedies 
and some others that are, notwithstanding, ex- 
cellent in their way, and I have endeavoured to 
point out in what this difference consists, as well 
as I could. Finally, I will not say that he had 
not as great a natural genius for comedy as any 
one; but I may venture to say, that he had not 
the same artificial models and regulated mass 
of fashionable absurdity or elegance to work 
upon. 

The superiority of Shakspeare's natural ge- 
nius for comedy cannot be better shown than by 
a comparison between his comic characters and 
those of Ben Jonson. The matter is the same : 



74 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

but how different is the manner ! The one gives 
fair-play to nature and his own genius, while 
the other trusts almost entirely to imitation and 
custom, Shakspeare takes his groundwork in 
individual character and the manners of his age, 
and raises from them a fantastical and delight- 
ful superstructure of his own : the other takes 
the same groundwork in matter-of-fact, but 
hardly ever rises above it; and the more he 
strives, is but the more enveloped "in the crust 
of formality" and the crude circumstantials of 
his subject. His genius (not to profane an old 
and still venerable name, but merely to make 
myself understood) resembles the grub more 
than the butterfly, plods and grovels on, wants 
wings to wanton in the idle summer's air, and 
catch the golden light of poetry. Ben J onson 
is a great borrower from the works of others, 
and a plagiarist even from nature ; so little free- 
dom is there in his imitations of her, and he ap- 
pears to receive her bounty like an alms. His 
works read like translations, from a certain cramp 
manner, and want of adaptation. Shakspeare, 
even when he takes whole passages from books, 
does it with a spirit, felicity, and mastery over 
his subject, that instantly makes them his own ; 
and shows more independence of mind and ori- 
ginal thinking in what he plunders without 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 75 



scruple, than Ben Jonson often did in his most 
studied passages, forced from the sweat and la- 
bour of his brain. His style is as dry, as literal, 
and meagre, as Shakspeare's is exuberant, libe- 
ral, and unrestrained. The one labours hard, 
lashes himself up, and produces little pleasure 
with all his fidelity and tenaciousness of pur- 
pose : the other, without putting himself to any 
trouble, or thinking about his success, performs 
wonders, — 

" Does mad and frantic execution, 
Engaging and redeeming of himself, 
With such a careless force and forceless* care, 
As if that luck, in very spite of cunning, 
Bad him win all." 

There are people who cannot taste olives — 
and I cannot much relish Ben Jonson, though 
I have taken some pains to do it, and went to 
the task with every sort of good will. I do 
not deny his power or his merit ; far from it : 
but it is to me of a repulsive and unamiable 
kind. He was a great man in himself, but 
one cannot readily sympathize with him. His 
works, as the characteristic productions of an 
individual mind, or as records of the manners 
of a particular age, cannot be valued too 
highly ; but they have little charm for the 



• Unforced. 



76 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

mere general reader. Schlegel observes, that 
whereas Shakspeare gives the springs of human 
nature, which are always the same, or suffi- 
ciently so to be interesting and intelligible ; 
Jonson chiefly gives the humours of men, as 
connected with certain arbitrary or conven- 
tional modes of dress, action, and expression, 
which are intelligible only while they last, 
and not very interesting at any time. Shak- 
speare's characters are men; Ben Jonson's are 
more like machines, governed by mere routine, 
or by the convenience of the poet, whose 
property they are. In reading the one, we 
are let into the minds of his characters, we 
see the play of their thoughts, how their 
humours flow and work : the author takes a 
range over nature, and has an eye to every 
object or occasion that presents itself to set 
off and heighten the ludicrous character he 
is describing. His humour (so to speak) 
bubbles, sparkles, and finds its way in all 
directions, like a natural spring. In Ben 
Jonson it is, as it were, confined in a leaden 
cistern, where it stagnates and corrupts ; or 
directed only through certain artificial pipes 
and conduits to answer a given purpose. The 
comedy of this author is far from being 
"lively, audible, and full of vent:" it is for 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 77 

the most part obtuse, obscure, forced, and 
tedious. He wears out a jest to the last 
shred and coarsest grain. His imagination 
fastens instinctively on some one mark or sign 
by which he designates the individual, and 
never lets it go, for fear of not meeting with 
any other means to express himself by. A 
cant phrase, an odd gesture, an old-fashioned 
regimental uniform, a wooden leg,, a tobacco- 
box, or a hacked sword, are the standing 
topics by which he embodies his characters 
to the imagination. They are cut and dried 
comedy ; the letter, not the spirit of wit and 
humour. Each of his characters has a par- 
ticular cue, a professional badge which he wears 
and is known by, and by nothing else. Thus 
there is no end of Captain Otter, his Bull, his 
Bear, and his Horse, which are no joke at first, 
and do not become so by being repeated twenty 
times. It is a mere matter of fact, that some 
landlord of his acquaintance called his drinking 
cups by these ridiculous names $ but why need 
we be told so more than once, or indeed at all ? 
There is almost a total want of variety, fancy, 
relief, and of those delightful transitions which 
abound, for instance, in Shakspeare's tragi- 
comedy. In Ben Jonson, we find ourselves ge- 



78 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

nerally in low company, and we see no hope of 
getting out of it. He is like a person who fas- 
tens upon a disagreeable subject, and cannot be 
persuaded to leave it. His comedy, in a word, 
has not what Shakspeare somewhere calls 
"bless'd conditions/' It is cross-grained, 
mean, and mechanical. It is handicraft wit. 
Squalid poverty, sheer ignorance, bare-faced 
impudence, or idiot imbecility, are his drama- 
tic common- places — things that provoke pity 
or disgust, instead of laughter. His portraits 
are caricatures by dint of their very likeness, 
being extravagant tautologies of themselves; as 
his plots are improbable by an excess of con- 
sistency; for he goes thorough- stitch with 
whatever he takes in hand, makes one con- 
trivance answer all purposes, and every obsta- 
cle give way to a predetermined theory. For 
instance, nothing can be more incredible than 
the mercenary conduct of Corvino, in deliver- 
ing up his wife to the palsied embraces of 
Volpone; and yet the poet does not seem in 
the least to boggle at the incongruity of it : but 
the more it is in keeping with the absurdity of 
the rest of the fable, and the more it advances 
it to an incredible catastrophe, the more he 
seems to dwell upon it with complacency and 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 79 

a sort of wilful exaggeration, as if it were a 
logical discovery or corollary from well-known 
premises. He would no more be baffled in the 
working out a plot, than some people will be 
baffled in an argument. " If to be wise were 
to be obstinate/' our author might have laid 
signal claim to this title. Old Ben was of a 
scholastic turn, and had dealt a little in the 
occult sciences and controversial divinity. He 
was a man of strong crabbed sense, retentive 
memory, acute observation, great fidelity of 
description and keeping in character, a power 
of working out an idea so as to make it pain- 
fully true and oppressive, and with great ho- 
nesty and manliness of feeling, as well as di- 
rectness of understanding : but with all this, he 
wanted, to my thinking, that genial spirit of 
enjoyment and finer fancy, which constitute 
the essence of poetry and of wit. The sense of 
reality exercised a despotic sway over his mind, 
and equally weighed down and clogged his 
perception of the beautiful or the ridiculous. 
He had a keen sense of what was true and 
false, but not of the difference between the 
agreeable and the disagreeable ; or if he had, 
it was by his understanding rather than his 
imagination, by rule and method, not by sympa- 
thy, or intuitive perception of " the gayest, hap- 



80 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

piest attitude of things." There was nothing 
spontaneous, no impulse or ease about his genius : 
it was all forced, up-hill work, making a toil 
of a pleasure. And hence his overweening 
admiration of his own works, from the effort 
they had cost him, and the apprehension that 
they were not proportionally admired by others, 
who knew nothing of the pangs and throes 
of his Muse in child-bearing. In his satirical 
descriptions he seldom stops short of the lowest 
and most offensive point of meanness ; and in 
his serious poetry he seems to repose with com- 
placency only on the pedantic and far-fetched, 
the ultima Thule of his knowledge. He has a 
conscience of letting nothing escape the reader 
that he knows. Aliquando siifflaminandus erat, 
is as true of him as it was of Shakspeare, but 
in a quite different sense. He is doggedly bent 
upon fatiguing you with a favourite idea ; 
whereas Shakspeare overpowers and distracts 
attention by the throng and indiscriminate va- 
riety of his. His 6 Sad Shepherd' is a beauti- 
ful fragment. It was a favourite with the late 
Mr Home Tooke : indeed it is no wonder, for 
there was a sort of sympathy between the two 
men. Ben was like the modern wit and phi- 
losopher, a grammarian and a hard-headed 
thinker. There is an amusing account of Ben 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 81 



J onson's private manners in 6 Howel's Letters/ 
which is not generally known, and which I 
shall here extract. 

"From James Howel, Esq., to Sir Thomas Hawk, Kt. 

" Sir, Westminster, 5th April, 1636. 

" I was invited yesternight to a solemn supper by B. J., 
where you were deeply remembered; there was good 
company, excellent cheer, choice wines, and jovial wel- 
come : one thing intervened, which almost spoiled the 
relish of the rest, that B. began to engross all the dis- 
course, to vapour extremely by himself, and, by vilifying 
others, to magnify his own Muse. T. Ca. (Tom Carew) 
buzzed me in the ear, that though Ben had barrelled up a 
great deal of knowledge, yet it seems he had not read the 
ethics, which, among other precepts of morality, forbid 
self-commendation, declaring it to be an ill-favoured sole- 
cism in good manners. It made me think upon the lady 
(not very young) who, having a good while given her 
guest neat entertainment, a capon being brought upon 
the table, instead of a spoon, she took a mouthful of 
claret, and spouted into the hollow bird: such an accident 
happened in this entertainment: you know — propria 
laus sordet in ore : be a man's breath ever so sweet, yet it 
makes one's praise stink, if he makes his own mouth the 
conduit-pipeof it. But, for my part, I am content to dis- 
pense with the Roman infirmity of Ben, now that time 
hath snowed upon his pericranium. You know Ovid and 
(your) Horace were subject to this humour, the first 
bursting out into — 

Jamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira nec ignis, &c» 
The other into — 

Exegi rconumentum sere perennius, &c. 
As also Cicero, while he forced himself into this hexa- 
meter : O fortunatam natam me consule Homam ! There 

G 



82 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

is another reason that excuseth B., which is, that if one 
be allowed to love the natural issue of his body, why not 
that of the brain, which is of a spiritual and more noble 
extraction ? M 

The concurring testimony of all his contempo- 
raries agrees with his own candid avowal, as to 
Ben Jonson's personal character. He begins^ 
for instance, an epistle to Drayton in these 
words :— 

" Michael, by some 'tis doubted if I be 
A friend at all ; or, if a friend, to thee." 

Of Shakspeare's comedies I have already 
given a detailed account, which is before the 
public, and which I shall not repeat of course ; 
but I shall give a cursory sketch of the princi- 
pal of Ben Jonson's. [It has been observed of 
this author, that he painted not so much human 
nature as temporary manners ; not the characters 
of men, but their humours ; that is to say, 
peculiarities of phrase, modes of dress, gesture, 
&c, which becoming obsolete, and being in 
themselves altogether arbitrary and fantastical, 
have become unintelligible and uninteresting.] 
The Silent Woman is built upon the supposition 
of an old citizen disliking noise, who takes to 
wife Epicene (a supposed young lady) for the 
reputation of her silence, and with a view to 
disinherit his nephew, who has laughed at his 



ON SHAKSPE ARE AND BEN JONSON. 83 

infirmity; when the ceremony is no sooner 
over than the bride turns out a very shrew, his 
house becomes a very Babel of noises, and he 
offers his nephew his own terms to unloose the 
matrimonial knot, which is done by proving 
that Epicene is no woman. There is some 
humour in the leading character, but too much 
is made out of it, not in the way of Moliere's 
exaggerations, which, though extravagant, are 
fantastical and ludicrous, but of serious, plod- 
ding, minute prolixity. The first meeting 
between Morose and Epicene is well managed, 
and does not "o'erstep the modesty of nature," 
from the very restraint imposed by the situ- 
ation of the parties — by the affected taciturnity 
of the one, and the other's singular dislike of 
noise. The whole story, from the beginning 
to the end, is a gratuitous assumption, and the 
height of improbability. The author, in sus- 
taining the weight of his plot, seems like a 
balance-master who supports a number of people, 
piled one upon another, on his hands, his knees, 
his shoulders, but with a great effort on his 
own part, and with a painful effect to the 
beholders. The scene between Sir Amorous La 
Fool and Sir John Daw, in which they are 
frightened, by a feigned report of each other's 
courage, into a submission to all sorts of in dig- 



84 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

nities, which they construe into flattering civili- 
ties, is the same device as that in 6 Twelfth 
Night ? between Sir Andrew Aguecheek and 
Viola, carried to a paradoxical and revolting 
excess. Ben Jonson had no idea of decorum 
in his dramatic fictions, which Milton says is 
the principal thing, but went on caricaturing 
himself and others till he could go no farther in 
extravagance, and sink no lower in meanness, 
The titles of his dramatis personce, such as Sir 
Amorous La Fool, Truewit, Sir John Daw, 
Sir Politic Would-be, &c. &c, which are signifi- 
cant and knowing, show his determination to 
overdo everything by thus letting you into 
their characters beforehand, and afterwards 
proving their pretensions by their names. Thus 
Peregrine, in 6 Volpone/ says, " Your name, 
Sir?" Politick. "My name is Politick 
Would-be." To which Peregrine replies, 
" Oh, that speaks him." How it should, 
if it was his real name, and not a nickname 
given him on purpose by the author, is hard to 
conceive. This play was Dryden's favourite. 
It is indeed full of sharp, biting sentences 
against the women, of which he was fond. 
The following may serve as a specimen. True- 
wit says, " Did I not tell thee, Dauphine ? 
Why, all their actions are governed by crude 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 85 

opinion, without reason or cause ; they know 
not why they do anything ; but, as they are 
informed, believe, judge, praise, condemn, 
love, hate, and in emulation one of another, do 
all these things alike. Only they have a natural 
inclination sways 'em generally to the worst, 
when they are left to themselves/' This is a 
cynical sentence ; and we may say of the rest of 
his opinions, that 66 even though we should hold 
them to be true, yet is it slander to have them 
so set down." The women in this play indeed 
justify the author's severity ; they are altogether 
abominable. They have an utter want of prin- 
ciple and decency, and are equally without a 
sense of pleasure, taste, or elegance. Madame 
Haughty, Madame Centaur, and Madame 
Mavis, form the College, as it is here pedanti- 
cally called. They are a sort of candidates 
for being upon the town, but cannot find 
seducers, and a sort of blue- stockings, before 
the invention of letters. Mistress Epicene, 
the silent gentlewoman, turns out not to be a 
woman at all; which is not a very pleasant 
denouement of the plot, and is itself an incident 
apparently taken from the blundering blind- 
man's buff conclusion of the ' Merry Wives of 
Windsor/ What Shakspeare might introduce 
by an accident, and as a mere passing jest, 



86 ON SH A.KSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

Ben Jonson would set about building a whole 
play upon. The directions for making love 
given by Truewit, the author's favourite, dis- 
cover great knowledge and shrewdness of 
observation, mixed w T ith the acuteness of 
malice, and approach to the best style of comic 
dialogue. But I must refer to the play itself 
for them. 

'Volpone, or the Fox/ is his best play. It is 
prolix and improbable, but intense and powerful. 
It is written con amove. It is made up of cheats 
and dupes, and the author is at home among 
them. He shows his hatred of the one and con- 
tempt for the other, and makes them set one an- 
other off to great advantage. There are several 
striking dramatic contrasts in this play, where 
the Fox lies jyerdu to watch his prey, where 
Mosca is the dextrous go-between, outwitting 
his gulls, his employer, and himself, and where 
each of the gaping legacy-hunters, the lawyer, 
the merchant, and the miser, eagerly occupied 
with the ridiculousness of the other's preten- 
sions, is blind only to the absurdity of his own: 
but the whole is worked up too mechanically, 
and our credulity overstretched at last revolts 
into scepticism, and our attention overtasked 
flags into drowsiness. This play seems formed 
on the model of Plautus, in unity of plot and 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 87 



interest ; and old Ben, in emulating his classic 
model, appears to have done his best. There is 
the same caustic, unsparing severity in it as in 
his other works. His patience is tried to the 
utmost. His words drop gall. 

" Hood an ass with reverend purple, 
So you can hide his too ambitious ears ; 
And he shall pass for a cathedral doctor." 

The scene between Volpone, Mosca, Voltore, 
Corvino, and Corbaccio, at the outset, will show 
the dramatic power in the conduct of this play, 
and will be my justification in what I have said 
of the literal tenaciousness (to a degree that is 
repulsive) of the author's imaginary descrip- 
tions. 

6 Every Man in his Humour/ is a play well 
known to the public. This play acts better than 
it reads. The pathos in the principal character, 
Kitely, is "as dry as the remainder biscuit after 
a voyage." There is, however, a certain good 
sense, discrimination, or logic of passion in the 
part, which affords excellent hints for an able 
actor, and which, if properly pointed, gives it 
considerable force on the stage. Bobadil is the 
only actually striking character in the play, or 
which tells equally in the closet and the theatre ; 
he is the real hero of the piece. His well-known 
proposal for the pacification of Europe by kill- 



88 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

ing some twenty of them, each his man a day, 
is as good as any other that has been suggested 
up to the present moment. His extravagant 
affectation, his blustering and cowardice, are an 
entertaining medley; and his final defeat and 
exposure, though exceedingly humorous, are the 
most affecting part of the story. Brainworm 
is a particularly dry and abstruse character. 
We neither know his business nor his motives : 
his plots are as intricate as they are useless, 
and as the ignorance of those he imposes 
upon is wonderful. This is the impression in 
reading it. Yet from the bustle and activity of 
this character on the stage, the changes of dress, 
the variety of affected tones and gipsy jargon., 
and the limping affected gestures, it is a very 
amusing theatrical exhibition. The rest, Master 
Matthew, Master Stephen, Cob, and Cob's wife, 
were living in the sixteenth century. That is all 
we all know of them. But from the very oddity 
of their appearance and behaviour, they have a 
very droll and even picturesque effect when 
acted* It seems a revival of the dead. We be- 
lieve in their existence w T hen we see them. As 
an example of the power of the stage in giving 
reality and interest to what otherwise would be 
without it, I might mention the scene in which 
Brainworm praises Master Stephen's leg. The 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 89 



folly here is insipid from its being seemingly 
carried to an excess, till we see it ; and then we 
laugh the more at it, the more incredible we 
thought it before. 

' Bartholomew Fair ' is chiefly remarkable for 
the exhibition of odd humours and tumbler's 
tricks, and is on that account amusing to read 
once. 6 The Alchymist ' is the most famous of 
this author's comedies, though I think it does 
not deserve its reputation. It contains all that 
is quaint, dreary, obsolete, and hopeless in this 
once famed art, but not the golden dreams 
and splendid disappointments. We have the 
mere circumstantials of the sublime science, pots 
and kettles, aprons and bellows, crucibles and 
diagrams, all the refuse and rubbish, not the es- 
sence, the true elixir vitce. There is, however, 
one glorious scene between Surly and Sir Epi- 
cure Mammon, which is the finest example I 
know of dramatic sophistry, or of an attempt to 
prove the existence of a thing by an imposing 
description of its effects; but compared with 
this, the rest of the play is a caput mortuum. 
The scene I allude to is the following: : — 

o 

" Mammon. Come on, Sir. Now, you set your foot 
on shore 

In Novo Orbe ; here's the rich Peru ; 

And there, within, Sir, are the golden mines, 

Great Solomon's Ophir ! He was sailing to 't 



90 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 

Three years, but we have reached it in ten months. 
This is the day wherein, to all my friends, 
I will pronounce the happy word, Be rich ; 
This day you shall be Spectatissimi. 
You shall no more deal with the hollow dye, 
Or the frail card. ***** 
You shall start up young viceroys, 
And have your punks and punketees, my Surly ; 
And unto thee, I speak it first, Be rich. 
Where is my Subtle, there ? Within, oh ! 

Face, [within] Sir, he'll come to you by and by. 

Mam. That is his Firedrake, 
His Lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals, 
Till he firk nature up in her own centre. 
You are not faithful, Sir. This night I'll change 
All that is metal in my house to gold ; 
And early in the morning will I send 
To all the plumbers and the pewterers, 
And buy their tin and lead up ; and to Lothbury, 
For all the copper. 

Surly. What, and turn that too ? 

Mam. Yes, and I'll purchase Devonshire and Cornwall, 
And make them perfect Indies ! You admire now ? 
Surly. No, faith. 
Mam. But when you see th' effects of the great 
medicine, 

Of which one part projected on a hundred 
Of Mercury, or Venus, or the Moon, 
Shall turn it to as many of the Sun ; I 
Nay, to a thousand, so ad infinitum j 
You will believe me. 

Surly. Yes, when I see't, I will, — 

Mam. Ha ! why ? 
Do you think I fable with you ? I assure you, 
He that has once the flower of the Sun, 
The perfect ruby, which we call Elixir, 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 91 



Not only can do that, but, by its virtue, 
Can confer honour, love, respect, long life ; 
Give safety, valour, yea, and victory, 
To whom he will. In eight and twenty days 
I'll make an old man of fourscore a child. 

Surly. No doubt ; he's that already. 

Mam. Nay, I mean, 
Restore his years, renew him, like an eagle, 
To the fifth age ; make him get sons and daughters, 
Young giants : as our philosophers have done, 
The ancient patriarchs, afore the flood, 
But taking, once a week, on a knife's point, 
The quantity of a grain of mustard of it ; 
Become stout Marses, and beget young Cupids. 
******** 

You are incredulous. 

Surly, Faith, I have a humour. 
I would not willingly be gulled. Your stone 
Cannot transmute me. 

Mam. Pertinax, my Surly, 
Will you believe antiquity ? records ? 
I'll show you a book where Moses and his sister, 
And Solomon, have written of the art ; 
Ay, and a treatise penn'd by Adam — 

Surly. How ! 

Mam s Of the philosophers* stone, and in High Dutch. 

Surly. Did Adam write, Sir, in High Dutch ? 

Mam. He did ; 
Which proves it was the primitive tongue. 
***** 

[Enter Face, as a servant 
How now ! 

Do we succeed? Is our day come, and holds it ? 

Face. The evening will set red upon you, Sir ; 
You have colour for it, crimson ; the red ferment 
Has done his office ; three hours hence prepare you 
To see projection. 



92 ON SHAKSPEARE AND EEN JONSON. 



Mam. Pertinax, my Surly, 
Again I say to thee aloud, Be rich. 
This day thou shalt have ingots, and to-morrow 
Give lords the affront. * * * Where's thy master ? 

Face. At his prayers, Sir, he ; 
Good man, he's doing his devotions 
For the success. 

Mam. Lungs, I will set a period 
To all thy labours ; thou shalt be the master 
Of my seraglio .... 
For I do mean 

To have a list of wives and concubines 

Equal with Solomon •.**** 

I will have all my beds blown up, not stuft : 

Down is too hard ; and then, mine oval room 

Fill'd with such pictures as Tiberius took 

From Elephantis, and dull Aretine 

But coldly imitated. Then my glasses 

Cut in more subtle angles, to disperse 

And multiply the figures as I walk * * * My mists 

I'll have of perfumes, vapoured about the room 

To lose ourselves in ; and my baths like pits 

To fall into ; from whence we will come forth 

And roll us dry in gossamer and roses. 

Is it arriv'd at ruby ? Where I spy 

A wealthy citizen, or a rich lawyer, 

Have a sublimed pure wife, unto that fellow 

I'll send a thousand pound to be my cuckold. 

Face. And I shall carry it ? 

Mam. No. I'll have no bawds. 
But fathers and mothers. They will do it best, 
Best of all others. And my flatterers 
Shall be the pure and gravest of divines 
That I can get for money. 

We will be brave, Puffe, now we have the medicine. 
My meat shall all come in, in Indian shells, 
Dishes of agate set in gold, and studded 



ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 



With emeralds, sapphire, hyacinths, and rubies. 

The tongues of carps, dormice, and camel's heels 

Boil'd in the spirit of Sol, and dissolv'd pearl, 

Apicius' diet, 'gainst the epilepsy ; 

And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber, 

Headed with diamond and carbuncle. 

My footboys shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons, 

Knots, godwits, lampreys ; I myself will have 

The beards of barbels serv'd instead of salads ; 

Oil'd mushrooms ; and the swelling unctuous paps 

Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off, 

Drest with an exquisite and poignant sauce ; 

For which I'll say unto my cook, There's gold, 

Go forth and be a knight. 
Face. Sir, I'll go look 

A little how it heightens. 
Mam. Do. My shirts 

I'll have of taffeta- sarsnet, soft and light 

As cobwebs ; and for all my other raiment, 

It shall be such as might provoke the Persian, 

Were he to teach the world riot anew. 

My gloves of fishes and birds' skins, perfum'd 

With gums of Paradise and eastern air. 

Surly. And do you think to have the stone with this 
Mam. No, I do think t' have all this with the stone. 
Surly* Why, I have heard he must be homo frugi, 
A pious, holy, and religious man, 
One free from mortal sin, a very virgin, — 

Mam. That makes it, Sir, he is so ; — but I buy it. 
My venture brings it me. He* honest wretch, 
A notable, superstitious, good soul, 
Has worn his knees bare, and his slippers bald, 
With prayer and fasting for it, and, Sir, let him 
Do it alone, for me, still ; here he comes ; 
Not a profane word afore him : 'tis poison.' 5 

Act ii, scene I 



94 ON SHAKSPEAR.E AND BEN JONSON. 

I have only to add a few words on Beaumont 
and Fletcher. i Rule a Wife and Have a 
Wife/ 6 The Chances/ and < The Wild Goose 
Chase/ the original of the 'Inconstant/ are 
superior in style and execution to anything of 
Ben J onson's. They are, indeed, some of the 
best comedies on the stage ; and one proof that 
they are so is, that they still hold possession of 
it They show the utmost alacrity of invention 
in contriving ludicrous distresses, and the ut- 
most spirit in bearing up against, or impatience 
and irritation under them. Don J ohn,in 6 The 
Chances/ is the heroic in comedy. Leon, in 
6 Rule a Wife and have a Wife/ is a fine exhibi- 
tion of the born gentleman and natural fool: 
the Copper Captain is sterling to this hour : 
his mistress, Estifania, only died the other day 
with Mrs Jordan: and the two grotesque 
females in the same play, act better than the 
Witches in < Macbeth.' 



LECTURE 



III. 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, SUCKLING, ETHEREGE, ETC. 

The metaphysical poets or wits of the age of 
James and Charles I, whose style was adopted 
and carried to a more dazzling and fantastic 
excess by Cowley in the following reign, after 
which it declined, and gave place almost en- 
tirely to the poetry of observation and reason- 
ing, are thus happily characterised by Dr J ohn- 
son. 

" The metaphysical poets were men of learn- 
ing, and to show their learning was their whole 
endeavour : but unluckily resolving to show it 
in rhyme, instead of writing poetry, they only 
wrote verses, and very often such verses as 
stood the trial of the finger better than of the 
ear; for the modulation was so imperfect, that 
they were only found to be verses by counting 
the syllables. 

66 If the father of criticism has rightly deno- 
minated poetry wnruA, an imitative art, 
these writers will, without great wrong, lose 



96 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

their right to the name of poets, for they cannot 
be said to have imitated anything ; they neither 
copied nature nor life; neither painted the 
forms of matter, nor represented the operations 
of intellect." 

The whole of the account is well worth read- 
ing; it was a subject for which Dr Johnson's 
powers both of thought and expression were 
better fitted than any other man's. If he had 
had the same capacity for following the flights 
of a truly poetic imagination, or for feeling the 
finer touches of nature, that he had felicity and 
force in detecting and exposing the aberrations 
from the broad and beaten path of propriety and 
common sense, he would have amply deserved 
the reputation he has acquired as a philosophical 
critic. 

The writers here referred to (such as Donne, 
Davies, Crashaw, and others) not merely mis- 
took learning for poetry— they thought anything 
was poetry that differed from ordinary prose 
and the natural impression of things, by being 
intricate, far-fetched, and improbable. Their 
style was not so properly learned as metaphy- 
sical ; that it is to say, whenever, by any vio* 
lence done to their ideas, they could make out 
an abstract likeness or possible ground of com- 
parison, they forced the image, whether learned 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 97 

or vulgar, into the service of the Muses. Any- 
thing would do to " hitch into a rhyme," no 
matter whether striking or agreeable, or not, so 
that it would puzzle the reader to discover the 
meaning, and if there was the most remote cir- 
cumstance, however trifling or vague, for the 
pretended comparison to hinge upon. They 
brought ideas together not the most, but the least 
like ; and of which the collision produced not 
light, but obscurity — served not to strengthen, 
but to confound. Their mystical verses read 
like riddles or an allegory. They neither be- 
long to the class of lively or severe poetry. They 
have not the force of the one, nor the gaiety of 
the other ; but are an ill-assorted, unprofitable 
union of the two together, applying to serious 
subjects that quaint and partial style of allusion 
which fits only what is light and ludicrous, and 
building the most laboured conclusions on the 
most fantastical and slender premises. The ob- 
ject of the poetry of imagination is to raise or 
adorn one idea by another more striking or 
more beautiful : the object of these writers was 
to match any one idea with any other idea, for 
better* for worse, as we say, and whether any- 
thing was gained by the change of condition or 
not. The object of the poetry of the passions, 
again, is to illustrate any strong feeling, by 

H 



98 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC* 

showing the same feeling as connected with 
objects or circumstances more palpable and 
touching; but here the object was to strain 
and distort the immediate feeling into some 
barely possible consequence or recondite ana- 
logy, in which it required the utmost stretch of 
misapplied ingenuity to trace the smallest con- 
nection with the original impression. In short, 
the poetry of this period was strictly the poetry 
not of ideas, but of definitions : it proceeded in 
mode and figure, by genus and specific differ- 
ence ; and was the logic of the schools, or an j 
oblique and forced construction of dry, literal f 
matter-of-fact, decked out in a robe of glittering 
conceits, and clogged with the halting shackles 
of verse. The imagination of the writers, in- 
stead of being conversant with the face of na- 
ture, or the secrets of the heart, was lost in the 
labyrinths of intellectual abstraction, or entan- 
gled in the technical quibbles and impertinent 
intricacies of language. The complaint so often 
made, and here repeated, is not of the want of 
power in these men, but of the waste of it ; not 
of the absence of genius, but the abuse of it. 
They had (many of them) great talents com- 
mitted to their trust, richness of thought, and 
depth of feeling ; but they chose to hide them 
(as much as they possibly could) under a false 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 99 

show of learning and unmeaning subtlety. From 
the style which they had systematically adopted, 
they thought nothing done till they had per- 
verted simplicity into affectation, and spoiled 
nature by art. They seemed to think there was 
an irreconcileable opposition between genius, as 
well as grace and nature ; tried to do without, 
or else constantly to thwart her; left nothing to 
her outward " impress," or spontaneous im- 
pulses, but made a point of twisting and tor- 
turing almost every subject they took in hand, 
till they had fitted it to the mould of their self- 
opinion and the previous fabrications of their 
own fancy, like those who pen acrostics in the 
shape of pyramids, and cut out trees into the 
form of peacocks. Their chief aim is to make 
you wonder at the writer, not to interest you in 
the subject ; and by an incessant craving after 
admiration, they have lost what they might 
have gained with less extravagance and affec- 
tation. So Cowper, who was of a quite oppo- 
site school, speaks feelingly of the misapplica- 
tion of Cowley's poetical genius. 

" And though reclaim'd by modern lights 
From an erroneous taste, 
I cannot but lament thy splendid wit 
Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools." 

Donne, who was considerably before Cowley, 
is without his fancy, but was more recondite in 



100 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

his logic, and rigid in his descriptions. He is 
hence led, particularly in his satires, to tell dis- 
agreeable truths in as disagreeable a way as 
possible, or to convey a pleasing and affecting 
thought (of which there are many to be found 
in his other writings) by the harshest means, 
and with the most painful effort. His Muse 
suffers continual pangs and throes. His thoughts 
are delivered by the Cesarean operation. The 
sentiments, profound and tender as they often 
are, are stifled in the expression ; and 64 heaved 
pantingly forth," are " buried quick again" 
under the ruins and rubbish of analytical dis- 
tinctions. It is like Poetry waking from a 
trance : with an eye bent idly on the outward 
world, and half-forgotten feelings crowding 
about the heart ; with vivid impressions, dim 
notions, and disjointed words. The following 
may serve as instances of beautiful or impas- 
sioned reflections losing themselves in obscure 
and difficult applications. He has some lines 
to a Blossom, which begin thus : 

" Little think'st thou, poor flow'r, 
Whom I have watched six or seven days, 
And seen thy birth, and seen what every hour 
Gave to thy growth, thee to this height to raise, 
And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough, 

Little think'st thou 
That it will freeze anon, and that I shall 
To-morrow find thee fall'n, or not at all." 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 101 

This simple and delicate description is only in- 
troduced as a foundation for an elaborate meta- 
physical conceit as a parallel to it, in the next 
stanza. 

" Little think'st thou (poor heart 
That labour'st yet to nestle thee, 
And think'st by hovering here to get a part 
In a forbidden or forbidding tree, 
And hop'st her stiffness by long siege to bow : ) 

Little think'st thou, 
That thou to-morrow, ere the sun doth wake, 
Must with this sun and me a journey take." 

This is but a lame and impotent conclusion 
from so delightful a beginning. He thus notices 
the circumstance of his wearing his late wife's 
hair about his arm, in a little poem which is 
called the Funeral : 

" Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm 
Nor question much 
That subtle wreath of hair, about mine arm ; 
The mystery, the sign you must not touch." 

The scholastic reason he gives quite dissolves 
the charm of tender and touching grace in the 
sentiment itself — 

" For 'tis my outward soul, 
Viceroy"to that, which unto heaven being gone, 

Will leave this to control, 
And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution." 

Again, the following lines, the title of which is 
' Love's Deity/ are highly characteristic of this 



102 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

author's manner, in which the thoughts are in- 
laid in a costly but imperfect mosaic-work. 

" I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, 
Who died before the God of Love was born ; 
I cannot think that he, who then lov'd most, 
Sunk so low, as to love one which did scorn. 
But since this God produc'd a destiny, 
And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be ; 
I must love her that loves not me." 

The stanza in the 'Epithalamion on a Count 
Palatine of the Rhine/ has been often quoted 
against him, and is an almost irresistible illus- 
tration of the extravagances to which this kind 
of writing, which turns upon a pivot of words 
and possible allusions, is liable. Speaking of 
the bride and bridegroom he says, by way of 
serious compliment — - 

" Here lies a she- Sun, and a he- Moon there. 
She gives the best light to his sphere ; 
Or each is both and all, and so 
They unto one another nothing owe." 

His love-verses and epistles to his friends 
give the most favourable idea of Donne. His 
satires are too clerical. He shows, if I may so 
speak, too much disgust, and, at the same 
time, too much contempt for vice. His 
dogmatical invectives * hardly redeem the nau- 
seousness of his descriptions, and compromise 
the imagination of his readers more than they 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 103 

assist their reason. The satirist does not 
write with the same authority as the divine, 
and should use his poetical privileges more 
sparingly. "To the pure all things are pure," 
is a maxim which a man like Dr Donne may 
be justified in applying to himself ; but he 
might have recollected that it could not be 
construed to extend to the generality of his 
readers, without benefit of clergy. 

Bishop Hall's Satires are coarse railing in 
verse, and hardly that. Pope has, however, 
contrived to avail himself of them in some of 
his imitations. 

Sir John Davies is the author of a poem on 
the Soul, and of one on Dancing. In both he 
shows great ingenuity, and sometimes terseness 
and vigour. In the last of these two poems 
his fancy pirouettes in a very lively and agree- 
able manner, but something too much in the 
style of a French opera- dancer, with sharp 
angular turns, and repeated deviations from 
the faultless line of simplicity and nature. 

Crashaw was a writer of the same ambitious 
stamp, whose imagination was rendered ^till 
more inflammable by the fervours of fanaticism, 
and who having been converted from Pro- 
testantism to Popery (a weakness to which 
the "seething brains" of the poets of this period 



104 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

were prone) by some visionary appearance 
of the Virgin Mary, poured out his devout 
raptures and zealous enthusiasm in a torrent 
of poetical hyperboles. The celebrated Latin 
epigram on the miracle of our Saviour, 
" The water blushed into wine," is in his usual 
hectic manner. His translation of the contest 
between the Musician and the Nightingale is 
the best specimen of his powers. 

Davenant's t Gondibert ' is a tissue of stanzas, 
all aiming to be wise and witty, each contain- 
ing something in itself, and the whole together 
amounting to nothing. The thoughts separately 
require so much attention to understand them, 
and arise so little out of the narrative, that 
they with difficulty sink into the mind, and 
ha^e no common feeling of interest to recall 
or link them together afterwards. The general 
style may be judged of by these two memorable 
lines in the description of the skeleton-chamber. 

" Yet on that wall hangs he too, who so thought, 
And she dried by him whom that he obeyed." 

Mr Hobbes, in a prefatory discourse, has 
thrown away a good deal of powerful logic 
and criticism in the recommendation of the 
plan of his friend's poem. Davenant, who 
was poet-laureate to Charles II, wrote several 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 105 

masques and plays which were well received 
in his time, but have not come down with 
equal applause to us. 

Marvel (on whom I have already bestowed 
such praise as I could, for elegance and ten- 
derness in his descriptive poems) in his satires 
and w r itty pieces was addicted to the affected 
and involved style here reprobated, as in his 
' Flecknoe' (the origin of Dryden's 6 Macfleck- 
noe') and in his satire on the Dutch. As an 
instance of this forced, far-fetched method of 
treating his subject, he says, in ridicule of the 
Hollanders, that when their dykes overflowed, 
the fish used to come to table with them, 
" And sat not as a meat, but as a guest." 
There is a poem of Marvel's on the death of 
King Charles I, which I have not seen, but 
which I have heard praised by one whose 
praise is never high but of the highest things, 
for the beauty and pathos, as well as the gene- 
rous frankness of the sentiments, coming, as 
they did, from a determined and incorruptible 
political foe. 

Shadwell was a successful and voluminous 
dramatic writer of much the same period. His 
6 Libertine' (taken from the celebrated Spanish 
story) is full of spirit ; but it is the spirit of 
licentiousness and impiety. At no time do 



106 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

there appear to have been such extreme specu- 
lations afloat on the subject of religion and 
morality, as there were shortly after the Re- 
formation, and afterw r ards under the Stuarts, 
the differences being widened by political irri- 
tation ; and the Puritans often over-acting one 
extreme out of grimace and hypocrisy, as the 
king's party did the other out of bravado. 

Carew is excluded from his pretensions to 
the laureateship in Suckling's c Sessions of the 
Poets/ on account of his slowness. His verses 
are delicate and pleasing, with a certain feeble- 
ness, but with very little tincture of the affec- 
tation of this period. His masque (called 
c Coelum Britannicum') in celebration of a 
marriage at court, has not much wit or fancy, 
but the accompanying prose directions and 
commentary on the mythological story, are 
written with wonderful facility and elegance, 
in a style of familiar dramatic dialogue ap- 
proaching nearer the writers of Queen Anne's 
reign than those of Queen Elisabeth's. 

Milton's name is included by Dr Johnson in 
the list of metaphysical poets on no better 
authority than his lines on Hobson the Cam- 
bridge Carrier, which he acknowledges were 
the only ones Milton wrote on this model. In- 
deed, he is the great contrast to that style of 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 107 

poetry, being remarkable for breadth and mas- 
siness, or what Dr J ohnson calls u aggregation 
of ideas/' beyond almost any other poet. He 
has in this respect been compared to Michael 
Angelo, but not with much reason : his verses 
are 

" inimitable on earth 

By model, or by shading pencil drawn." 

Suckling is also ranked, without sufficient 
warrant, among the metaphysical poets. Sir 
J ohn was 66 of the court, courtly and his 
style almost entirely free from the charge of 
pedantry and affectation. There are a few 
blemishes of this kind in his works, but they 
are but few. His compositions are almost all 
of them short and lively effusions of wit and 
gallantry, written in a familiar but spirited 
style, without much design or effort. His 
shrewd and taunting address to a desponding 
lover will sufficiently vouch for the truth of 
this account of the general cast of his best 
pieces. 

" Why so pale and wan, fond lover? 
Pr'ythee. why so pale? 
Will, when looking well can't move her, 
Looking ill prevail ? 
Pr'ythee why so pale ? 

Why so dull and mute, young sinner ? 
Pr'ythee why so mute ? 



108 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

Will, when speaking well, can't win her, 
Saying nothing do't 1 
Pr'ythee why so mute ? 

Quit, quit for shame, this will not move, 

This cannot take her ; 
If of herself she will not love, 

Nothing can make her ; 

The Devil take her." 

The two short poems against Fruition, that 
beginning, a There never yet was woman made, 
nor shall, but to be curst," — the song, " I 
pr'ythee, spare me gentle boy, Press me no 
more for that slight toy, That foolish trifle of a 
heart," — another, u 'Tis now, since I sat down 
before That foolish fort, a heart, 99 — Lutea 
Alamon — the set of similes, " Hast thou seen 
the down in the air, When wanton winds have 
tost it," — and his "Dream," which is of a more 
tender and romantic cast, are all exquisite in 
their way. They are the origin of the style of 
Prior and Gay in their short fugitive verses, 
and of the songs in the f Beggar's Opera/ His 
8 Ballad on a Wedding ' is his masterpiece, and 
is indeed unrivalled in that class of composi- 
tion, for the voluptuous delicacy of the senti- 
ments, and the luxuriant richness of the images. 
I wish I could repeat the whole, but that, from 
the change of manners, is impossible. The 
description of the bride is (half of it) as fol- 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 109 

lows : the story is supposed to be told by one 
countryman to another: — 

" Her finger was so small, the ring 
Would not stay on, which they did bring ; 

It was too wide a peck : 
And to say truth (for out it must) 
It look'd like the great collar (just) 

About our young colt's neck. 

Her feet beneath her petticoat, 
Like little mice, stole in and out, 

As if they feared the light : 
But oh ! she dances such away ! 
No sun upon an Easter-day 

Is half so fine a sight. 
***** 

Her cheeks so rare a white was on 
No daisy makes comparison 

(Who sees them is undone), 
For streaks of red were mingled there, 
Such as are on a Cath'rine pear, 

(The side that's next the sun.) 

Her lips were red ; and one was thin, 
Compar'd to that was next her chin ; 

( Some bee had stung it newly) 
But (Dick) her eyes so guard her face, 
I durst no more upon them gaze, 

Than on the sun in July. 

Her mouth so small, when she does speak, 
Thoud'st swear her teeth her words did break, 

That they might passage get ; 
But she so handled still the matter, 
They came as good as ours, or better, 

And are not spent a whit." 



110 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

There is to me in the whole of this delightful 
performance a freshness and purity like the 
first breath of morning. Its sportive irony 
never trespasses on modesty, though it some- 
times (laughing) threatens to do so ! Suck- 
ling's Letters are full of habitual gaiety and 
good sense. His 6 Discourse on Reason in 
Religion' is well enough meant. Though he 
excelled in the conversational style of poetry, 
writing verse with the freedom and readiness, 
vivacity and unconcern, with which he would 
have talked on the most familiar and sprightly 
topics, his peculiar powers deserted him in at- 
tempting dramatic dialogue. His comedy of 
the < Goblins ' is equally defective in plot, wit, 
and nature ; it is a wretched list of exits and 
entrances, and the whole business of the scene 
is taken up in the unaccountable seizure, and 
equally unaccountable escapes, of a number of 
persons from a band of robbers in the shape of 
Goblins, who turn out to be noblemen and 
gentlemen in disguise. Suckling was not a 
G rub street author • or it might be said, that 
this play is like what he might have written 
after dreaming all night of duns and a sponging 
house. His tragedies are no better : their titles 
are the most interesting part of them, ( Aglaura/ 
< Brennoralt,' and ' The Sad One.' 



ON COWLEY j BUTLER, ETC. Ill 

Cowley had more brilliancy of fancy and in- 
genuity of thought than Donne, with less 
pathos and sentiment. His mode of illustra- 
ting his ideas differs also from Donne's in this — 
that whereas Donne is contented to analyse an 
image into its component elements, and resolve 
it into its most abstracted species, Cowley 
first does this, indeed, but does not stop till he 
has fixed upon some other prominent example 
of the same general class of ideas, and forced 
them into a metaphorical union, by the medium 
of the generic definition. Thus he says — 

" The Phoenix Pindar is a vast species alone." 

He means to say that he stands by himself ; he 
is then " a vast species alone then by apply- 
ing to this generality the principium individua- 
tionis, he becomes a Phoenix, because the Phoe- 
nix is the only example of a species contained 
in an individual. Yet this is only a literal or 
metaphysical coincidence ; and literally and 
metaphysically speaking, Pindar was not a 
species by himself, but only seemed so by pre- 
eminence or excellence ; that is, from qualities 
of mind appealing to and absorbing the imagi- 
nation, and which, therefore, ought to be re- 
presented in poetical language by some other 
obvious and palpable image, exhibiting the 



112 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

same kind or degree of excellence in other 

things, as when Gray compares him to the 

Theban eagle, 

" Sailing with supreme dominion 
Through the azure deep of air." 

Again, he talks in the Motto, or invocation to 
his Muse, of " marching the Muse's Hannibal" 
into undiscovered regions. That is, he thinks 
first of being a leader in poetry, and then he 
immediately, by virtue of this abstraction, 
becomes a Hannibal ; though no two things can 
really be more unlike, in all the associations 
belonging to them, than a leader of armies and 
a leader of the tuneful nine. In like manner, 
he compares Bacon to Moses ; for in his verses 
extremes are sure to meet. The 6 Hymn to 
Light/ which forms a perfect contrast to Mil- 
ton's ' Invocation to Light/ in the commence- 
ment of the third book of 4 Paradise Lost/ 
begins in the following manner : — 

" First-born of Chaos, who so fair didst come 
From the old negro's darksome womb ! 
Which, when it saw the lovely child, 

The melancholy mass put on kind looks, and smil'd." 

And soon after — 

" 'Tis, I believe, this archery to show 
That so much cost in colours thou, 
And skill in painting, dost bestow, 

Upon thy ancient arms, the gaudy heav'nly bow. 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 



113 



Swift as light thoughts their empty career run, 

Thy race is finished when begun ; 

Let a post-angel start with thee, 
And thou the goal of earth shalt reach as soon as he." 

The conceits here are neither wit nor poetry ; 
but a burlesque upon both, made up of a sin- 
gular metaphorical jargon, verbal generalities, 
and physical analogies. Thus his calling Chaos, 
or Darkness, "the old negro/* would do for 
abuse or jest, but is too remote and degrading 
for serious poetry, and yet it is meant for such. 
The "old negro" is at best a nickname, and 
the smile on its face loses its beauty in such 
company. The making out the rainbow to be 
a species of heraldic painting, and converting an 
angel into a post-boy, show the same rage for 
comparison ; but such comparisons are as odious 
as they are unjust. Dr Johnson has multiplied 
instances of the same false style in its various 
divisions and subdivisions.* Of Cowley's serious 
poems, the ' Complaint 7 is the one I like the 
best; and some of his translations in the Essays, 
as those on ' Liberty ' and 'Retirement,' are ex- 
ceedingly good. The Odes to Vandyke, to the 
Royal Society, to Hobbes, and to the latter 
Brutus, beginning " Excellent Brutus," are all 

* See his Lives of the British Poets, Vol. L 

I 



114 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC* 

full of ingenious and high thoughts, impaired 
by a load of ornament and quaint disguises. 
The 6 Chronicle, or List of his Mistresses,' is the 
best of his original lighter pieces ; but the best 
of his poems are the translations from Anacreon, 
which remain, and are likely to remain, unri- 
valled. The spirit of wine and joy circulates 
in them ; and though they are lengthened out 
beyond the originals, it is by fresh impulses 
of an eager and inexhaustible feeling of delight. 
Here are some of them : — 

DRINKING. 

" The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, 
And drinks, and gapes for drink again. 
The plants suck in the earth, and are 
With constant drinking fresh and fair. 
The sea itself, which one would think 
Should have but little need of drink, 
Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up, 
So fill'd that they o'erflow the cup. 
The busy sun (and one would guess 
By's drunken fiery face no less) 
Drinks up the sea, and, when he *s done, 
The moon and stars drink up the sun. 
They drink and dance by their own light. 
They drink and revel all the night. 
Nothing in nature's sober found, 
But an eternal health goes round. 
Fill up the bowi then, fill it high, 
Fill all the glasses there ; for why 
Should every creature drink but I ; 

. Why, man of morals, tell me why ?" 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 115 

This is a classical intoxication ; and the poet's 
imagination, giddy with fancied joys, commu- 
nicates its spirit and its motion to inanimate 
things, and makes all nature reel round with it. 
It is not easy to decide between these choice 
pieces, which may be reckoned among the 
delights of human hind ; but that to the Grass- 
hopper is one of the happiest as well as most 
serious : — 

t( Happy insect, what can be 
In happiness compar'd to thee ? 
Fed with nourishment divine, 
The dewy morning's gentle wine ! 
Nature waits upon thee still, 
And thy verdant cup does fill ; 
'Tis filled wherever thou dost tread, 
Nature's self thy Ganymede. 

Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing ; 
Happier than the happiest king ! 
All the fields which thou dost see, 
All the plants, belong to thee ; 
All that summer-hours produce, 
Fertile made with early juice. 

Man for thee does sow and plough, 

Farmer he, and landlord thou ! 

Thou dost innocently joy ; 

Nor does thy luxury destroy ; 

The shepherd gladly heareth thee, 

More harmonious than he. 

Thee country hinds with gladness hear, 

Prophet of the ripen'd year ! 

Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire; 

Phoebus is himself thy sire. 



116 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

To thee, of all things upon earth, 

Life is no longer than thy mirth. 

Happy insect, happy thou ! 

Dost neither age nor winter know ; 

But, when thou'st drunk, and dane'd, and sung 

Thy fill the flowery leaves among, 

(Voluptuous and wise withal, 

Epicurean animal !) 

Sated with thy summer feast, 

Thou retir'st to endless rest." 

Cowley's Essays are among the most agree- 
able prose compositions in our language, being 
equally recommended by sense, wit, learning, 
and interesting personal history, and written in 
a style quite free from the faults of his poetry. 
It is a pity that he did not cultivate his talent 
for prose more, and write less in verse, for he 
was clearly a man of more reflection than 
imagination. The Essays on Agriculture, on 
Liberty, on Solitude, and on Greatness, are all 
of them delightful. From the last I may give 
his account of Senecio as an addition to the 
instances of the ludicrous, which I have at- 
tempted to enumerate in the introductory 
Lecture \ whose ridiculous affectation of gran- 
deur Seneca the elder (he tells us) describes to 
this effect : " Senecio was a man of a turbid 
and confused wit, who could not endure to 
speak any but mighty words and sentences, till 
this humour grew at last into so notorious a 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 117 

habit, or rather disease, as became the sport of 
the whole town: he would have no servants, 
but huge, massy fellows ; no plate or household 
stuff, but thrice as big as the fashion : you may 
believe me, for I speak it without raillery, his 
extravagancy came at last into such a madness, 
that he would not put on a pair of shoes, each 
of which was not big enough for both his feet ; 
he would eat nothing but what was great, nor 
touch any fruit but horse-plums and pound- 
pears ; he kept a mistress that was a very 
giantess, and made her walk too always in 
chiopins, till at last he got the surname of 
Senecio Grandio." This was certainly the most 
absurd person we read of in antiquity. Cow- 
ley's character of Oliver Cromwell, which is 
intended as a satire (though it certainly produces 
& very different impression on the mind), may 
vie for truth of outline and force of colouring 
with the masterpieces of the Greek and Latin 
historians. It may serve as a contrast to the 
last extract. " What can be more extraordinary 
than that a person of mean birth, no fortune, 
no eminent qualities of body, which have some- 
times, or of mind, which have often, raised 
men to the highest dignities, should have the 
courage to attempt, and the happiness to succeed 
in, so improbable a design as the destruction of 



118 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

one of the most ancient and most solidly-founded 
monarchies upon the earth? That he should 
have the power or boldness to put his prince 
and master to an open and infamous death ; to 
banish that numerous and strongly-allied family ; 
to do all this under the name and wages of a 
Parliament; to trample upon them too as he 
pleased, and spurn them out of doors when he 
grew weary of them ; to raise up a new and 
unheard-of monster out of their ashes ; to stifle 
that in the very infancy, and set up himself 
above all things that ever were called sovereign 
in England; to oppress all his enemies by 
arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice m y 
to serve all parties patiently for a while, and to 
command them victoriously at last; to over-run 
each corner of the three nations, and overcome 
with equal facility both the riches of the south 
and the poverty of the north; to be feared and 
courted by all foreign princes, and adopted a 
brother to the gods of the earth ; to call to- 
gether Parliaments with a word of his pen 9 
and scatter them again with the breath of his 
mouth ; to be humbly and daily petitioned that 
he would please to be hired, at the rate of two 
millions a year, to be the master of those who 
had hired him before to be their servant ; to 
have the estates and lives of three kingdoms as 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 119 

much at his disposal as was the little inherit- 
ance of his father, and to be as noble and liberal 
in the spending of them ; and lastly (for there 
is no end of all the particulars of his glory), to 
bequeath all this with one word to his posterity ; 
to die with peace at home, and triumph abroad ; 
to be buried among kings, and with more than 
regal solemnity ; and to leave a name behind 
him, not to be extinguished, but with the whole 
world ; which, as it is now too little for his 
praises, so might have been too for his con- 
quests, if the short line of his human life could 
have been stretched out to the extent of his 
immortal designs ? 99 

Cowley has left one comedy, called i Cutter 
of Coleman Street/ which met with an unfa- 
vourable reception at the time, and is now (not 
undeservedly) forgotten. It contains, however, 
one good scene, which is rich both in fancy and 
humour, that between the puritanical bride, 
Tabitha, and her ranting royalist husband. It 
is said that this play was originally composed, 
and afterwards revived, as a satire upon the 
Presbyterian party ; yet it was resented by the 
court party as a satire upon itself. A man 
must, indeed, be sufficiently blind with party- 
prejudice, to have considered this as a compli- 
ment to his own side of the question. " Call 



120 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

you this backing of your friends ? 99 The cava- 
liers are in this piece represented as reduced to 
the lowest shifts in point of fortune, and sunk 
still lower in point of principle. 

The greatest single production of wit of this 
period, I might say of this country, is Butler's 
'Hudibras.' It contains specimens of every 
variety of drollery and satire, and those speci- 
mens crowded together into almost every page. 
The proof of this is, that nearly one half of his 
lines are got by heart, and quoted for mottos. 
In giving instances of different sorts of wit, or 
trying to recollect good things of this kind, 
they are the first which stand ready in the 
memory ; and they are those which furnish the 
best tests and most striking illustrations of what 
we want. Dr Campbell, in his 6 Philosophy of 
Rhetoric,' when treating of the subject of wit, 
which he has done very neatly and sensibly, 
has constant recourse to two authors, Pope and 
Butler, the one for ornament, the other more 
for use. Butler is equally in the hands of 
the learned and the vulgar, for the sense is 
generally as solid as the images are amusing 
and grotesque. Whigs and Tories join in his 
praise. He could not, in spite of himself, 

"narrow his mind, 
And to party give up what was meant for mankind.'' 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 121 

Though his subject was local and temporary, 
his fame was not circumscribed within his own 
age. He was admired by Charles II. and has 
been rewarded by posterity. It is the poet's 
fate ! It is not, perhaps, to be wondered at, 
that arbitrary and worthless monarchs like 
Charles II. should neglect those who pay court 
to them. The idol (if it had sense) would 
despise its worshippers. Indeed, Butler hardly 
merited anything on the score of loyalty to the 
house of Stuart. True wit is not a parasite 
plant. The strokes which it aims at folly and 
knaveiy on one side of a question, tell equally 
home on the other. Dr Zachary Grey, who 
added notes to the poem, and abused the leaders 
of Cromwell's party by name, would be more 
likely to have gained a pension for his services 
than Butler, who was above such petty work. 
A poem like 6 Hudibras ' could not be made to 
order of a court. Charles might very well have 
reproached the author with wanting to show his 
own wit and sense rather than to favour a 
tottering cause ; and he has even been suspected, 
in parts of his poem, of glancing at majesty 
itself. He in general ridicules not persons, but 
things, not a party, but their principles, which 
may belong, as time and occasion serve, to one 



122 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

set of solemn pretenders or another. This he 
has done most effectually, in every possible 
way, and from every possible source, learned 
or unlearned. He has exhausted the moods 
and figures of satire and sophistry.* It would 
be possible to deduce the different forms of 
syllogism in Aristotle, from the different vio- 
lations or mock-imitations of them in Butler. 
He fulfils every one of Barrow's conditions of 
wit, which I have enumerated in the first 
Lecture. He makes you laugh or smile by 
comparing the high to the low,f or by pretend- 
ing to raise the low to the lofty ;J he succeeds 
equally in the familiarity of his illustrations,§ 



* " And have not two saints power to use 
A greater privilege than three Jews ? 

Her voice the music of the spheres, 
So loud it deafens mortals' ears. 
As wise philosophers have thought, 
And that's the cause we hear it not." 

t " No Indian prince has to his palace 

More followers than a thief to the gallows." 

$ " And in his nose, like Indian king, 

He (Bruin) wore for ornament a ring." 

§ " Whose noise whets valour sharp, like beer 
By thunder turned to vinegar." 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 123 

or their incredible extravagance,* by comparing 
things that are alike or not alike. He surprises 
equally by his coincidences or contradictions, 
by spinning out a long-winded flimsy excuse, 
or by turning short upon you with the point- 
blank truth. His rhymes are as witty as his 
reasons, equally remote from what common 
custom would suggest;! and he startles you 
sometimes by an empty sound like a blow upon 

* " Replete with strange hermetic powder, 

That wounds nine miles point-blank would solder." 

* * * * 

His tawny beard was th' equal grace 
Both of his wisdom and his face ; 
In cut and die so like a tile, 
A sudden view it would beguile : 
The upper part thereof was whey, 
The nether orange mixed with grey. 
This hairy meteor did denounce 
The fall of sceptres and of crowns ; 
With grisly type did represent 
Declining age of government ; 
And tell with hieroglyphic spade 

Its own grave and the state's were made. 

* * * * 

This sword a dagger had his page, 
That was but little for his age ; 
And therefore waited on him so, 
As dwarfs upon knight errants do. 
f " And straight another with his flambeau 

Gave Ralpho o'er the eyes a damn'd blow. 

* * * * 

That deals in destiny's dark counsels, 
And sage opinions of the moon sells." 



124 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC* 

a drum-head,* by a pun upon one word,f and 
by splitting another in two at the end of a verse, 
with the same alertness and pow r er over the 
odd and unaccountable in the combinations of 
sounds as of images. J 

There are as many shrewd aphorisms in his 
works, clenched by as many quaint and indi- 
vidual allusions, as perhaps in any author what- 
ever. He makes none but palpable hits, that 
may be said to give one's understanding a rap 
on the knuckles. § He is, indeed, sometimes 
too prolific, and spins his antithetical sentences 
out, one after another, till the reader, not the 
author, is wearied. He is, however, very 
seldom guilty of repetitions, or wordy para- 
phrases of himself ; but he sometimes comes 
rather too near it, and interrupts the thread of 
his argument (for narrative he has none) by a 

* " The mighty Tottipottimoy 
Sent to our elders an envoy." 

t " For Hebrew roots, although they're found 
To flourish most in barren ground." 

+ " Those wholesale critics that in eoffee- 
Houses cry down all philosophy. " 

§ " This we among ourselves may speak, 
But to the wicked or the weak, 
We must be cautious to declare 
Perfection-truths, such as these are," 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 125 

tissue of epigrams, and the tagging of points 
and conundrums without end. The fault, or 
original sin of his genius, is, that from too 
much leaven it ferments and runs over; and 
there is, unfortunately, nothing in his subject 
to restrain and keep it w T ithin compass. He 
has no story good for anything, and his 
characters are good for very little. They are 
too low and mechanical, or too much one thing, 
personifications, as it were, of nicknames, and 
bugbears of popular prejudice and vulgar cant, 
unredeemed by any virtue, or difference or 
variety of disposition. There is no relaxation 
or shifting of the parts ; and the impression in 
some degree fails of its effect, and becomes 
questionable from its being always the same. 
The satire looks, at length, almost like special 
pleading ; it has nothing to confirm it in the 
apparent good humour or impartialitity of the 
writer. It is something revolting to see an 
author persecute his characters, the cherished 
offspring of his brain, in this manner, without 
mercy. Hudibras and Ralpho have immor- 
talised Butler 5 and what has he done for them 
in return, but set them up to be " pilloried on 
infamy's high and lasting stage?" This is 
ungrateful ! 

The rest of the characters have, in general, 



126 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

little more than their names and professions 
to distinguish them. We scarcely know one 
from another, Cerdon, or Orsin, or Crowdero, 
and are often obliged to turn back, to connect 
their several adventures together. In fact, 
Butler drives only at a sect of obnoxious 
opinions, and runs into general declamations. 
His poem in its essence is a satire, or didactic 
poem. It is not virtually dramatic or narra- 
tive. It is composed of digressions by the 
author. He instantly breaks off in the middle 
of a story, or incident, to comment upon and 
turn it into ridicule. He does not give charac- 
ters but topics, which would do just as w r ell in 
his own mouth without agents, or machinery of 
any kind. The long digression in Part III, 
in which no mention is made of the hero, is 
just as good and as much an integrant part of 
the poem as the rest. The conclusion is lame 
and impotent, but that is saying nothing ; the 
beginning and middle are equally so as to 
historical merit. There is no keeping in his 
characters, as in Don Quixote ; nor any enjoy- 
ment of the ludicrousness of their situations, as 
in Hogarth. Indeed, it requires a considerable 
degree of sympathy to enter into and describe 
to the life even the ludicrous eccentricities of 
others, and there is no appearance of sympathy 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 127 

or liking to his subject in Butler, His humour 
is to his wit, "as one grain of wheat in a 
bushel of chaff: you shall search all day, and 
when you find it, it is not worth the trouble." 
Yet there are exceptions. The most decisive 
is, I think, the description of the battle between 
Bruin and his foes, Part I, Canto iii, and 
again of the triumphal procession in Part II, 
Canto ii, of which the principal features are 
copied in Hogarth's election print, the Chairing 
of the Successful Candidate. The account of 
Sidrophel and Whackum is another instance, 
and there are some few others, but rarely 
sprinkled up and down.* 

* The following are nearly all I can remember 
" Thus stopp'd their fury and the basting 
Which towards Hudibras was hasting." 

It is said of the bear, in the fight with the dogs — 
(i And setting his right foot before, 
He raised himself to show how tall 
His person was above them all. 

# * * * 

At this the knight grew high in chafe, 
And staring furiously on Ralph, 
He trembled and look'd pale with ire, 
Like ashes first, then red as fire. 

* * * * 

The knight himself did after ride, 
Leading Crowdero by his side, 
And tow'd him if he lagged behind, 
Like boat against the tide and wind." 



128 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

The widow, the termagant heroine of the 
poem, is still more disagreeable than her lover : 
and her sarcastic account of the passion of 
love, as consisting entirely in an attachment 
to land and houses, goods and chattels, which 
is enforced with all the rhetoric the author is 
master of, and hunted down through endless 
similes, is evidently false. The vulgarity and 

* * * * 

" And raised upon his desperate foot, 
On stirrup-side he gazed about. 

« x * # 

And Hudibras, who used to ponder 
On such sights with judicious wonder." 

The beginning of the account of the procession in Part 
II is as follows : — 

" Both thought it was the wisest course 
To wave the fight and mount to horse, 
And to secure, by swift retreating, 
Themselves from danger of worse beating i 
Yet neither of them would disparage 
By uttering of his mind his courage. 
Which made 'em stoutly keep their ground, 
With horror and disdain wind-bound. 
And now the cause of all their fear 
By slow degrees approached so near, 
They might distinguish different noise 
Of horns and pans, and dogs and boys, 
And kettle-drums, whose sullen dub 
Sounds like the hooping of a tub." 



ON COWLEY j BUTLER, ETC. 129 

meanness of sentiment which Butler complains 
of in the Presbyterians, seems at last, from long 
familiarity and close contemplation, to have 
tainted his own mind. Their worst vices ap- 
pear to have taken root in his imagination. 
Nothing but what was selfish and groveling 
sunk into his memory, in the depression of a 
menial situation under his supposed hero. He 
has, indeed, carried his private grudge too far 
into his general speculations. He even makes 
out the rebels to be cowards and well beaten, 
which does not accord with the history of the 
times. In an excess of zeal for church and 
state, he is too much disposed to treat religion 
as a cheat and liberty as a farce. It was the 
cant of that day (from which he is not free) to 
cry down sanctity and sobriety as marks of dis- 
affection, as it is the cant of this to hold them 
up as proofs of loyalty and staunch monarchical 
principles. Religion and morality are, in either 
case, equally made subservient to the spirit of 
party, and a stalking-horse to the love of power. 
Finally, there is a want of pathos and humour, 
but no want of interest in Hudibras. It is dif- 
ficult to lay it down. One thought is inserted 
into another ; the links in the chain of reason- 
ing are so closely rivetted, that the attention 
seldom flags, but is kept alive (without any 

K 



130 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

other assistance) by the mere force of writing. 
There are occasional indications of poetical 
fancy, and an eye for natural beauty ; but these 
are kept under or soon discarded, judiciously 
enough, but it should seem, not for lack of 
power, for they are certainly as masterly as 
they are rare. Such is the burlesque descrip- 
tion of the stocks, or allegorical prison, in which 
first Crowdero and then Hudibras are confined : 
the passage beginning — 

" As when an owl that's in a barn, 
Sees a mouse creeping in the corn, 
Sits still and shuts his round blue eyes, 
As if he slept," &c. 

And the description of the moon going down in 
the early morning, which is as pure, original, 
and picturesque as possible : — 

" The queen of night, whose large command 
Rules all the sea and half the land, 
And over moist and crazy brains 
In high spring-tides at midnight reigns, 
Was now declining to the west, 
To go to bed and take her rest." 

Butler is sometimes scholastic, but he makes 
his learning tell to good account ; and for the 
purposes of burlesque nothing can be better 
fitted than the scholastic style. 

Butler's 6 Remains ' are nearly as good and 
full of sterling genius as his principal poem. 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 



131 



Take the following ridicule of the plan of the 
Greek tragedies as an instance : 

" Reduce all tragedy, by rules of art, 
Back to its ancient theatre, a cart, 
And make them henceforth keep the beaten roads 
Of reverend choruses and episodes ; 
Reform and regulate a puppet-play, 
According to the true and ancient way ; 
That not an actor shall presume to squeak 
Unless he have a license for 't in Greek ; 
Nor devil in the puppet-play be allowed 
To roar and spit fire, but to fright the crowd, 
Unless some god or demon chance to have piques 
Against an ancient family of Greeks ; 
That other men may tremble and take warning 
How such a fatal progeny they're born in ; 
For none but such for tragedy are fitted 
That have been ruined only to be pitied ; 
And only those held proper to deter 
Who have th' ill luck against their wills to err ; 
Whence only such as are of middling sizes, 
Betwixt morality and venial vices, 
Are qualified to be destroyed by fate, 
For other mortals to take warning at." 

Upon Critics, 

His ridicule of Milton's Latin style is equally 
severe, but not so well founded. 

I have only to add a few words respecting 
the dramatic writers about this time, before w r e 
arrive at the golden period of our comedy. 
Those of Etherege* are good for nothing, ex- 



* « Love in a Tub,' and ' She Would if She Could.' 



132 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

cept 6 The Man of Mode/ or ' Sir Fopling Flut- 
ter/ which is, I think, a more exquisite and 
airy picture of the manners of that age than 
any other extant. Sir Fopling himself is an 
inimitable coxcomb, but pleasant withal. He is 
a suit of clothes personified. Dorimant (sup- 
posed to be Lord Eochester) is the genius of 
grace, gallantry, and gaiety. The women in 
this courtly play have very much the look and 
air (but something more demure and signifi- 
cant) of Sir Peter Lely's beauties. Harriet, 
the mistress of Dorimant, who " tames his wild 
heart to her loving hand/' is the flower of the 
piece. Her natural, untutored grace and spirit, 
her meeting w T ith Dorimant in the Park, bow- 
ing and mimicking him, and the luxuriant de- 
scription which is given of her fine person, 
altogether form one of the chefs-d'oeuvre of dra- 
matic painting. I should think this comedy 
would bear reviving ; and if Mr Liston were to 
play Sir Fopling, the part would shine out with 
double lustre, " like the morn risen on mid- 
noon." Dryden's comedies have all the point 
that there is in ribaldry, and all the humour 
that there is in extravagance. I am sorry I can 
say nothing better of them. He was not at 
home in this kind of writing, of which he was 
himself conscious. His play was horse-play. 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 133 

His wit (what there is of it) is ingenious and 
scholar-like, rather than natural and dramatic. 
Thus Burr, in the 6 Wild Gallant/ says to 
Failer, " She shall sooner cut an atom than 
part us." His plots are pure voluntaries in 
absurdity, that bend and shift to his purpose 
without any previous notice or reason, and are 
governed by final causes. . ' Sir Martin Mar- 
all/ which was taken from the Duchess of 
Newcastle, is the best of his plays, and the 
origin of the ' Busy Body/ Otway's comedies 
do no sort of credit to him : on the contrary, 
they are as desperate as his fortunes. The 
Duke of Buckingham's famous 6 Rehearsal,' 
which has made, and deservedly, so much noise 
in the world, is in a great measure taken from 
Beaumont and Fletcher's 6 Knight of the Burn- 
ing Pestle/ which was written in ridicule of 
the London apprentices in the reign of Eliza- 
beth, who had a great hand in the critical 
decisions of that age. There were other dra- 
matic writers of this period, noble and ple- 
beian. I shall only mention one other piece, 
the 'Committee/ I believe by Sir Robert 
Howard, which has of late been cut down into 
the farce called 6 Honest Thieves/ and which 
I remember reading with a great deal of plea- 
sure many years ago. 



134 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 

One cause of the difference between the im- 
mediate reception and lasting success of dra- 
matic works at this period may be, that after 
the court took the play-houses under its par- 
ticular protection, everything became very 
much an affair of private patronage. If an 
author could get a learned lord or a countess- 
dowager to bespeak a box at his play, and 
applaud the doubtful passages, he considered 
his business as done. On the other hand, 
there was a reciprocity between men of letters 
and their patrons ; critics were " mitigated into 
courtiers, and submitted," as Mr Burke has 
it, "to the soft collar of social esteem/' in 
pronouncing sentence on the works of lords 
and ladies. How ridiculous this seems now ! 
What a hubbub it would create if it were 
known that a particular person of fashion and 
title had taken a front box in order to decide 
on the fate of a first play ! How the newspa- 
per critics would laugh in their sleeves ! How 
the public would sneer ! But at this time 
there was no public. I will not say, there- 
fore, that these times are better than those ; 
but they are better, I think, in this respect. 
An author now-a-days no longer hangs dang- 
ling on the frown of a lord, or the smile of 
a lady of quality (the one governed perhaps 



ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 135 

by his valet, and the other by her waiting- 
maid), but throws himself boldly, making 
a lover's leap of it, into the broad lap of 
public opinion, on which he falls like a 
feather-bed ; and which, like the great bed 
of Ware, is wide enough to hold us all very 
comfortably ! 



LECTURE IV, 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, 
AND FARQUHAR. 

Comedy is a " graceful ornament to the civil or- 
der; the Corinthian capital of polished society." 
Like the mirrors which have been added to the 
sides of one of our theatres, it reflects the images 
of grace, of gaiety, and pleasure double, and 
completes the perspective of human life. To 
read a good comedy is to keep the best con> 
pany in the world, where the best things are 
said, and the most amusing happen. The wit- 
tiest remarks are always ready on the tongue, 
and the luckiest occasions are always at hand 
to give birth to the happiest conceptions. Sense 
makes strange havoc of nonsense. Refinement 
acts as a foil to affectation, and affectation to 
ignorance. Sentence after sentence tells. We 
don't know which to admire most, the observa- 
tion or the answer to it. We would give our 
fingers to be able to talk so ourselves, or to hear 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 137 

others talk so. In turning over the pages of 
the best comedies, we are almost transported to 
another world, and escape from this dull age to 
one that was all life, and whim, and mirth, and 
humour. The curtain rises, and a gayer scene 
presents itself, as on the canvass of Watteau. 
We are admitted behind the scenes like specta- 
tors at court, on a levee or birth-day ; but it is 
the court, the gala day of wit and pleasure, of 
gallantry and Charles II ! What an air breathes 
from the name ! what a rustling of silks and 
waving of plumes ! what a sparkling of diamond 
ear-rings and shoe-buckles ! What bright eyes, 
(ah, those were Waller's Sacharissa's as she 
passed !) what killing looks and graceful mo- 
tions ! How the faces of the whole ring .are 
dressed in smiles ! how the repartee goes round ! 
how wit and folly, elegance and awkward imita- 
tion of it, set one another off ! Happy, thought- 
less age, when king and nobles led purely orna- 
mental lives ; when the utmost stretch of a 
morning's study went no farther than the choice 
of a sword-knot, or the adjustment of a side- 
curl ; when the soul spoke out in all the pleasing 
eloquence of dress; and beaux and belles, 
enamoured of themselves in one another's follies, 
fluttered like gilded butterflies, in giddy mazes, 
through the walks of St James's Park ! 

The four principal writers of this style of 



138 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

comedy (which I think the best) are undoubt- 
edly Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and 
Farquhar. The dawn was in Etherege, as its 
latest close was in Sheridan. — It is hard to say 
which of these four is best, or in what each of 
them excels, they had so many and such great 
excellences. 

Congreve is the most distinct from the others, 
and the most easily defined, both from what he 
possessed, and from what he wanted. He had by 
far the most wit and elegance, with less of other 
things, of humour, character, incident, &c. His 
style is inimitable, nay perfect. It is the highest 
model of comic dialogue. Every sentence is 
replete with sense and satire, conveyed in the 
most polished and pointed terms. Every page 
presents a shower of brilliant conceits, is a tissue 
of epigrams in prose, is a new triumph of wit, 
a new conquest over dulness. The fire of art- 
ful raillery is nowhere else so well kept up. 
This style, which he was almost the first to in- 
troduce, and which he carried to the utmost 
pitch of classical refinement, reminds one ex- 
actly of Collins's description of wit as opposed 
to humour, 

" Whose jewels in his crisped hair 
Are placed each other's light to share." 

Sheridan will not bear a comparison with him 
in the regular antithetical construction of his 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 139 

sentences, and in the mechanical artifices of his 
style, though so much later, and though style 
in general has been so much studied, and in the 
mechanical part so much improved since then. 
It bears every mark of being what he himself in 
the dedication of one of his plays tells us that it 
was, a spirited copy taken off and carefully revised 
from the most select society of his time, exhi- 
biting all the sprightliness, ease, and animation 
of familiar conversation, with the correctness 
and delicacy of the most finished composition. 
His works are a singular treat to those who 
have cultivated a taste for the niceties of Eng- 
lish style : there is a peculiar flavour in the very 
words, which is to be found in hardly any other 
writer. To the mere reader his writings would 
be an irreparable loss : to the stage they are 
already become a dead letter, with the exception 
of one of them, < Love for Love.' This play 
is as full of character, incident, and stage-effect, 
as almost any of those of his contemporaries, 
and fuller of wit than any of his own, except 
perhaps the 6 Way of the World/ It still acts, 
and is still acted well. The effect of it is pro- 
digious on the well-informed spectator. In par- 
ticular, Munden's Foresight, if it is not just 
the thing, is a wonderfully rich and powerful 
piece of comic acting. His look is planet-struck ; 



140 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

his dress and appearance like one of the signs of 
the Zodiac taken down. Nothing can be more 
bewildered ; and it only wants a little more help- 
lessness, a little more of the doating, querulous 
garrulity of age, to be all that one conceives of 
the superannuated, star-gazing original. The 
gay, unconcerned opening of this play, and the 
romantic generosity of the conclusion, where 
Valentine, when about to resign his mistress, 
declares — " I never valued fortune, but as it was 
subservient to my pleasure ; and my only plea- 
sure was to please this lady," — are alike admi- 
rable. The peremptory bluntness and exagge- 
rated descriptions of Sir Sampson Legend are 
in a vein truly oriental, with a Shakspearian 
cast of language, and form a striking contrast 
to the quaint credulity and senseless superstitions 
of Foresight. The remonstrance of his son to 
him, " to divest him, along with his inheritance, 
of his reason, thoughts, passions, inclinations, 
affections, appetites, senses, and the huge train 
of attendants which he brought into the world 
with him," with his valet's accompanying com- 
ments, is one of the most eloquent and spirited 
specimens of wit, pathos, and morality, that 
is to be found, The short scene with Trapland, 
the money-broker, is of the first water. What 
a picture is here drawn of Tattle ! " More mis- 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 141 

fortunes, Sir !" says Jeremy. Valentine. 66 What, 
another dun?'' Jeremy. " No, Sir, but Mr Tattle 
is come to wait upon you." What an introduc- 
tion to give of an honest gentleman in the shape 
of a misfortune ! The scenes between him, Miss 
Prue, and Ben, are of a highly coloured descrip- 
tion. Mrs Frail and Mrs Foresight are " sisters 
every way and the bodkin which Mrs Fore- 
sight brings as a proof of her sister's levity of 
conduct, and which is so convincingly turned 
against her as a demonstration of her own — 
" Nay, if you come to that, where did you find 
that bodkin ?" — is one of the trophies of the 
moral justice of the comic drama. The 6 Old 
Bachelor' and ' Double Dealer' are inferior to 
6 Love for Love/ but one is never tired of 
reading them. The fault of the last is, that 
Lady Touchwood approaches, in the turbulent 
impetuosity of her character, and measured 
tone of her declamation, too near to the tragedy- 
queen; and that Mask well's plots puzzle the 
brain by their intricacy, as they stagger our 
belief by their gratuitous villany. Sir Paul 
and Lady Pliant, and my Lord and Lady Froth, 
are also scarcely credible in the extravagant in- 
sipidity and romantic vein of their follies, in 
which they are notably seconded by the lively 
Mr Brisk and " dying Ned Careless." 



142 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

The 6 Way of the World ' was the author's 
last and most carefully finished performance. 
It is an essence almost too fine ; and the sense 
of pleasure evaporates in an aspiration after 
something that seems too exquisite ever to have 
been realised. After inhaling'the spirit of Con- 
greve's wit, and tasting " love's thrice reputed 
nectai" in his works, the head gjrow.s giddy in 
turning ffdn-the highest point of rapture to the 
ordinary business of life ; and* we can with 
difficulty recal the truant Fancy to those objects 
which V e are fain to take up with here, for better^ 
for worse. "'What can be more enchanting than 
Millamant and her morning thoughts, her doux 
sommeils? What more provoking than her 
reproach to her lover, who proposes to rise 
early, u Ah ! idle creature !" The meeting of 
these two lovers, after the abrupt dismissal of 
Sir Wilful, is the height of careless and volup- 
tuous elegance, as if they moved in air, and 
drank a finer spirit of humanity. 

" Millamant. Like Phoebus sung the no less amorous boy. 
Mirabell. Like Daphne she, as lovely and as coy. 

Millamant is the perfect model of the accom- 
plished fine lady : 

" Come, then, the colours and the ground prepare, 
Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air ; 
Choose a firm cloud, before it falls, and in it 
Catch ere she change, the Cynthia of a minute." 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 143 

She is the ideal heroine of the comedy of high 
life, who arrives at the height of indifference to 
everything from the height of satisfaction ; to 
whom pleasure is as familiar as the air she 
draws ; elegance worn as a part of her dress ; 
wit the habitual language which she hears and 
speaks ; love, a matter of course ; and who has 
nothing to hope or to fear, her own caprice 
being the only law to herself, and rule to those 
about her. Her words seem composed of 
amorous sighs — her looks are glanced at pros- 
trate admirers or envious rivals. 

" If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see 
That heart that others bleed for, bleed for me." 

She refines on her pleasures to satiety ; and is 
almost stifled in the incense that is offered to 
her person, her wit, her beauty, and her for- 
tune. Secure of triumph, her slaves tremble at 
her frown : her charms are so irresistible, that 
her conquests give her neither surprise nor 
concern. " Beauty the lover's gift?" she ex- 
claims, in an answer to Mirabell — 6( Dear me, 
what is a lover that it can give ? Why one 
makes lovers as fast as one pleases, and they 
live as long as one pleases, and they die as soon 
as one pleases ; and then if one pleases, one 
makes more/' We are not sorry to see her 
tamed down at last, from her pride of love and 



144 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

beauty, into a wife. She is good-natured and 
generous, with all her temptations to the con- 
trary ; and her behaviour to Mirabel! recon- 
ciles us to her treatment of Witwoud and 
Petulant, and of her country admirer, Sir 
Wilful. 

Congreve has described all this in his character 
of Millamant, but he has done no more ; and if 
he had, he would have done wrong. He has 
given us the finest idea of an artificial character 
of this kind; but it is still the reflection of 
an artificial character. The springs of nature, 
passion, or imagination are but feebly touched. 
The impressions appealed to, and with masterly 
address, are habitual, external, and conventional 
advantages ; the ideas of birth, of fortune, of 
connexions, of dress, accomplishment, fashion, 
the opinion of the world, of crowds of admirers, 
continually come into play, flatter our vanity, 
bribe our interest, soothe our indolence, fall in 
with our prejudices ; — it is these that support 
the goddess of our idolatry, with which she 
is every thing* and without which she would 
be nothing. The mere fine lady of comedy, 
compared with the heroine of romance or 
poetry, when stripped of her adventitious or- 
naments and advantages, is too much like the 
doll stripped of its finery. In thinking of 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 145 

Millamant, we think almost as much of her 
dress as of her person : it is not so with respect 
to Rosalind or Perdita. The poet has painted 
them differently; in colours which 66 nature's 
own sweet and cunning hand laid on/' with 
health, with innocence, with gaiety, " wild wit, 
invention ever new ;" with pure red and white, 
like the wilding's blossoms; with warbled 
wood-notes, like the feathered choir's; with 
thoughts fluttering on the wings of imagination, 
and hearts panting and breathless with eager 
delight. The interest we feel is in themselves ; 
the admiration they excite is for themselves. 
They do not depend upon the drapery of cir- 
cumstances. It is nature that u blazons her- 
self" in them. Imogen is the same in a lonely 
cave as in a court; nay more, for she there 
seems something heavenly — a spirit or a vision ; 
and, as it were, shames her destiny, brighter for 
the foil of circumstances. Millamant is nothing 
but a fine lady ; and all her airs and affectation 
would be blown away with the first breath 
of misfortune. Enviable in drawing rooms, 
adorable at her toilette, fashion, like a witch, 
has thrown its spell around her ; but if that 
spell were broken, her power of fascination 
would be gone. For that reason I think the 

L 



146 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

character better adapted for the stage : it is more 
artificial, more theatrical, more meretricious. 
I would rather have seen Mrs Abington's 
Millamant than any Rosalind that ever appeared 
on the stage. Somehow, this sort of acquired 
elegance is more a thing of costume, of air and 
manner ; and in comedy, or on the comic stage, 
the light and familiar, the trifling, superficial, 
and agreeable, bears, perhaps, rightful sway 
over that which touches the affections, or ex- 
hausts the fancy. — There is a callousness in the 
worst characters in the 6 Way of the World/ 
in Fainall, and his wife, and Mrs Marwood, 
not very pleasant ; and a grossness in the 
absurd ones, such as Lady Wishfort and Sir 
Wilful, which is not a little amusing. Wit- 
w r oud wishes to disclaim, as far as he can, his 
relationship to this last character, and says, 
" he's but his half brother to which Mirabell 
makes answer — a Then, perhaps, he's but half 
a fool." Peg is an admirable caricature of 
rustic awkwardness and simplicity, which is 
carried to excess without any offence, from a 
sense of contrast to the refinement of the chief 
characters in the play. The description of Lady 
Wishfort's face is a perfect piece of painting. 
The force of style in this author at times 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 147 

amounts to poetry. Waitwell, who personates 
Sir Rowland, and Foible, his accomplice in the 
matrimonial scheme upon her mistress, hang as 
a dead weight upon the plot. They are mere 
tools in the hands of Mirabell, and want life 
and interest. Congreve's characters can all of 
them speak well, they are mere machines when 
they come to act. Our author's superiority 
deserted him almost entirely with his wit. His 
serious and tragic poetry is frigid and jejune to 
an unaccountable degree. His forte was the 
description of actual manners, whether elegant 
or absurd ; and when he could not deride the 
one or embellish the other, his attempts at 
romantic passion or imaginaiy enthusiasm are 
forced, abortive, and ridiculous, or common- 
place. The description of the ruins of a temple 
in the beginning of the 6 Mourning Bride/ was 
a great stretch of his poetic genius. It has, 
however, been over-rated, particularly by Dr 
Johnson, who could have done nearly as well 
himself for a single passage, in the same style 
of moralising and sentimental description. To 
justify this general censure, and to show how 
the lightest and most graceful wit degenerates 
into the heaviest and most bombastic poetry, I 
will give one description out of his tragedy 



148 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 



which will be enough. It is the speech which 
Gonsalez addresses to Almeria : 

" Be every day of your long life like this. 
The sun, bright conquest, and your brighter eyes 
Have all conspired to blaze promiscuous light, 
And bless this day with most unequal lustre. 
Your royal father, my victorious lord, 
Loaden with spoils and ever-living laurel, 
Is entering now, in martial pomp, the palace. 
Five hundred mules precede his solemn march, 
Which groan beneath the weight of Moorish wealth. 
Chariots of war, adorned with glittering gems, 
Succeed ; and next, a hundred neighing steeds, 
"White as the fleecy rain on Alpine hills ; 
That bound, and foam, and champ the golden bit, 
As they disdain'd the victory they grace. 
Prisoners of war in shining fetters follow : 
And captains of the noblest blood of Afric 
Sweat by his chariot- wheels, and lick and grind, 
With gnashing teeth, the dust his triumphs raise. 
The swarming populace spread every wall, 
And cling, as if with claws they did enforce 
Their hold, through clifted stones stretching and staring 
As if they were all eyes, and every limb 
Would feed its faculty of admiration, 
While you alone retire, and shun this sight ; 
This sight, which is indeed not seen (though twice 
The multitude should gaze) in absence of your eyes." 

This passage seems, in part, an imitation of 
Bolingbroke's ' Entry into London/ The style 
is as different from Shakspeare as it is from 
that of Witwoud and Petulant. It is plain that 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 149 

the imagination of the author could not raise itself 
above the burlesque. His 'Mask of Semele/ 
i Judgment of Paris/ and other occasional 
poems, are even worse. I would not advise any 
one to read them, or if I did, they would not. 

Wycherley was before Congreve ; and his 
' Country Wife ' will last longer than anything 
of Congreve's as a popular acting play. It is 
only a pity that it is not entirely his own ; but 
it is enough so to do him never-ceasing honour, 
for the best things are his own. His humour is, 
in general, broader, his characters more natural, 
and his incidents more striking than Congreve's. 
It may be said of Congreve, that the workman- 
ship overlays the materials : in Wycherley, the 
casting of the parts and the fable are alone suffi- 
cient to ensure success. We forget Congreve's 
characters, and only remember what they say : 
we remember Wycherley' s characters, and the 
incidents they meet with, just as if they were 
real, and forget what they say, comparatively 
speaking. Miss Peggy (or Mrs Margery 
Pinch wife ) is a character that will last for ever, 
I should hope; and even when the original is 
no more, if that should ever be, while self-will, 
curiosity, art, and ignorance are to be found in 
the same person, it will be just as good and as 
intelligible as ever in the description, because it 



350 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

is built on first principles, and brought out in 
the fullest and broadest manner. Agnes, in 
Moliere's play, has a great deal of the same 
unconscious impulse and heedless naivete, but 
hers is sentimentalised and varnished over ( in 
the French fashion ) with long-winded apologies 
and analytical distinctions. It wants the same 
simple force and home truth. It is not so 
direct and downright. Miss Peggy is not 
even a novice in casuistry : she blurts out her 
meaning before she knows what she is saying, 
and she speaks her mind by her actions oftener 
than by her words. The outline of the plot is 
the same ; but the point-blank hits and master- 
strokes, the sudden thoughts and delightful 
expedients, such as her changing the letters, the 
meeting her husband plump in the park, as sh 
is running away from him as fast as her heels 
can carry her, her being turned out of doors by 
her jealous booby of a husband, and sent by him 
to her lover disguised as Alicia, her sister-in- 
law — occur first in the modern play. There 
are scarcely any incidents or situations on the 
stage, which tell like these for pantomimic 
effect, which give such a tingling to the blood, 
or so completely take away the breath with 
expectation and surprise. Miss Prue, in 6 Love 
for Love/ is a lively reflection of Miss Peggy, 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 151 

but without the bottom and weight of metal. 
Hoyden is a match for her in constitution and 
complete effect, as Corinna, in e The Confe- 
deracy/ is in mischief, but without the wit. 
Mrs Jordan used to play all these characters ; 
and as she played them, it was hard to know 
which was best. Pinchwife, or Moody (as 
he is at present called), is, like others of Wycher- 
ley's moral characters, too rustic, abrupt, and 
cynical. He is a more disagreeable, but less 
tedious character than the husband of Agnes, 
and both seem, by all accounts, to have been 
rightly served. The character of Sparkish is 
quite new, and admirably hit off. He is an 
exquisite and suffocating coxcomb; a pretender 
to wit and letters, without common understand- 
ing, or the use of his senses. The class Of 
character is thoroughly exposed and under- 
stood ; but he persists in his absurd conduct so 
far, that it becomes extravagant and disgusting, 
if not incredible, from mere weakness and fop- 
pery. Yet there is something in him that we 
are inclined to tolerate at first, as his professing 
that "with him a wit is the first title to re- 
spect ; " and we regard his unwillingness to be 
pushed out of the room, and coming back in 
spite of their teeth, to keep the company of 
wits and raillers, as a favourable omen. But he 



152 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC, 

utterly disgraces his pretensions before he has 
done. With all his faults and absurdities, he is, 
however, a much less offensive character than 
Tattle. Horner is a stretch of probability in the 
first concoction of that ambiguous character 
(for he does not appear at present on the 
stage as Wycherley made him) ; but notwith- 
standing the indecency and indirectness of the 
means he employs to carry his plans into 
effect, he deserves every sort of consider- 
ation and forgiveness both for the display 
of his own ingenuity, and the deep insight 
he discovers into human nature — such as it was 
in the time of Wycherley. The author has 
commented on this character, and the double 
meaning of the name in his 6 Plain Dealer/ 
borrowing the remarks, and almost the very 
words of Moliere, who has brought forward 
and defended his own work against the ob- 
jections of the precise part of his audience, in 
his Critique de VEcole des Femmes. There 
is no great harm in these occasional plagia- 
risms, except that they make one uncomfortable 
at other times, and distrustful of the originality 
of the whole. The 6 Plain Dealer ' is Wych- 
erley' s next best work, and is a most severe and 
poignant moral satire. There is a heaviness 
about it, indeed, an extravagance, an overdoing 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 153 

both in the style, the plot, and characters, but 
the truth of feeling and the force of interest 
prevail over every objection. The character of 
Manly, the Plain Dealer, is violent, repulsive, 
and uncouth, which is a fault, though one that 
seems to have been intended for the sake of 
contrast ; for the portrait of consummate, art- 
ful hypocrisy in Olivia, is, perhaps, rendered 
more striking by it. The indignation excited 
against this odious and pernicious quality by 
the masterly exposure to which it is here sub- 
jected, is " a discipline of humanity." No one 
can read this play attentively without being the 
better for it as long as he lives. It penetrates 
to the core ; it shows the immorality and hate- 
ful effects of duplicity, by showing it fixing its 
harpy fangs in the heart of an honest and 
worthy man. It is worth ten volumes of ser- 
mons. The scenes between Manly after his 
return, Olivia, Plausible, and Novel, are in- 
structive examples of unblushing impudence, 
of shallow pretensions to principle, and of the 
most mortifying reflections on his own situa- 
tion, and bitter sense of female injustice and 
ingratitude, on the part of Manly. The devil 
of hypocrisy and hardened assurance seems 
worked up to the highest pitch of conceivable 
effrontery in Olivia, when, after confiding to 



154 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

her cousin the story of her infamy, she, in a 
moment, turns round upon her for some sudden 
purpose, and affecting not to know the meaning 
of the other's allusions to what she has just 
told her, reproaches her with forging insinua- 
tions to the prejudice of her character, and in 
violation of their friendship. "Go! you're a 
censorious ill woman." This is more trying to 
the patience than anything in the 6 Tartuffe.' 
The name of this heroine, and her overtures 
to Fidelia as the page, seem to have been 
suggested by 6 Twelfth Night.' It is curious 
to see how the same subject is treated by 
two such different authors as Shakspeare and 
Wycherley. The widow Blackacre and her 
son are, like her lawsuit — everlasting. A more 
lively, palpable, bustling, ridiculous picture 
cannot be drawn. Jerry is a hopeful lad, 
though undutiful, and gets out of bad hands into 
worse. Goldsmith evidently had an eye to these 
two precious characters in 6 She Stoops to Con- 
quer.' Tony Lumpkin and his mother are of 
the same family, and the incident of the theft 
of the casket of jewels, and the bag of parch- 
ments, is nearly the same in both authors. 
Wycherley's other plays are not so good. The 
[ Gentleman Dancing Master' is a long, foolish 
farce, in the exaggerated manner of Moliere, 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 155 

but without bis spirit or whimsical invention. 
6 Love in a Wood/ though not what one would 
wish it to be for the author's sake or our own, is 
much better, and abounds in several rich and 
highly-coloured scenes, particularly those in 
which Miss Lucy, her mother Crossbite, Dap- 
perwit, and Alderman Gripe are concerned. 
Some of the subordinate characters and in- 
trigues in this comedy are grievously spun 
out. Wycherley, when he got hold of a good 
thing, or sometimes even of a bad one, was 
determined to make the most of it ; and might 
have said with Dogberry, truly enough, "Had 
I the tediousness of a king, I could find in my 
heart to bestow it all upon your worships." 
In reading this author's best works, those 
which one reads most frequently over, and 
knows almost by heart, one cannot help think- 
ing of the treatment he received from Pope 
about his verses. It was hardly excusable in 
a boy of sixteen to an old man of seventy, 

Vanbrugh comes next, and holds his own 
fully with the best. He is no writer at all, as 
to mere authorship; but he makes up for it 
by a prodigious fund of comic invention and 
ludicrous description, bordering somewhat on 
caricature. Though he did not borrow from 
him, he was much more like Moliere in genius 



156 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

than Wycherley was, who professedly imitated 
him. He has none of Congreve's graceful 
refinement, and as little of Wycherley's serious 
manner and studied insight into the springs of 
character ; but his exhibition of it in dramatic 
contrast and unlooked-for situations, where the 
different parties play upon one another's fail- 
ings, and into one another's hands, keeping up 
the jest like a game at battledore and shuttle- 
cock, and urging it to the utmost verge of 
breathless extravagance, in the mere eagerness 
of the fray, is beyond that of any other of our 
writers. His fable is not so profoundly laid, 
nor his characters so well digested, as Wycher- 
ley's (who, in these respects, bore some resem- 
blance to Fielding). Vanbrugh does not lay 
the same deliberate train from the outset to 
the conclusion, so that the whole may hang 
together, and tend inevitably from the combi- 
nation of different agents and circumstances to 
the same decisive point; but he works out 
scene after scene on the spur of the occasion, 
and from the immediate hold they take of his 
imagination at the moment, without any pre- 
vious bias or ultimate purpose, much more 
powerfully, with more verve, and in a richer 
vein of original invention. His fancy warms 
and burnishes out as if he were engaged in the 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 157 

real scene of action, and felt all his faculties 
suddenly called forth to meet the emergency. 
He has more nature than art; what he does 
best, he does because he cannot help it. He 
has a masterly eye to the advantages which 
certain accidental situations of character pre- 
sent to him on the spot, and executes the most 
difficult and rapid theatrical movements at a 
moment's warning. Of this kind are the ini- 
mitable scenes in the 6 Provoked Wife/ between 
Razor and Mademoiselle, where they repeat 
and act over again the rencontre in the Mul- 
berry walk between Constant and his mistress, 
than which nothing was ever more happily 
conceived, or done to more absolute perfection ; 
that again in the 6 Relapse/ where Loveless 
pushes Berinthia into the closet ; the sudden 
meeting, in the * Confederacy/ between Dick 
and Mrs Amlet; the altercation about the 
letter between Flippanta and Corinna, in the 
same play, and that again where Brass, at the 
house of Gripe the money-scrivener, threatens 
to discover his friend and accomplice, and by 
talking louder and louder to him, as he tries to 
evade his demands, extorts a grudging sub- 
mission from him. This last scene is as fol- 
lows : — 



158 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 



"Dick. I wish my old hobbling mother han't been 
blabbing something here she should not do. 

Brass, Fear nothing, all's safe on that side yet. But 
how speaks young mistress's epistle ? soft and tender ? 

Dick, As pen can write. 

Brass. So you think all goes well there ? 

Dick. As my heart can wish. 

Brass. You are sure on't ? 

Dick. Sure on't. 

Brass. Why then, ceremony aside— [putting on his fiat] 
—you and I must have a little talk, Mr Amlet. 

Dick. Ah, Brass, what art thou going to do ? wo't ruin 
me? 

Brass. Look you, Dick, few words ; you are in a 
smooth way of making your fortune ; I hope all will roll 
on. But how do you intend matters shall pass 'twixt you 
and me in this business? 

Dick. Death and furies ! What a time dost take to 
talk on't ? 

Brass. Good words, or I betray you ; they have al- 
ready heard of one Mr Amlet in the house. 

Dick. Here's a son of a whore. [Aside, 
Brass, In short, look smooth, and be a good prince. I 
am your valet, 'tis true : your footman sometimes, which 
I'm enraged at; but you have always had the ascendant, 
I confess : when we were schoolfellows, you made me 
carry your books, make your exercise, own your rogueries, 
and sometimes take a whipping for you. When we were 
fellow-'prentices, though I was your senior, you made me 
open the shop, clean my master's shoes, cut last at dinner, 
and eat all the crust. In our sins, too, I must own you 
still kept me under ; you soar'd up to adultery with the 
mistress, while I was at humble fornication with the 
maid. Nay, in our punishments you still made good 
your post ; for when once upon a time I was sentenced 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 159 

but to be wbipp'd, I cannot deny but you were condemned 
to be hang'd. So that in all times, I must confess, your 
inclinations have been greater and nobler than mine ; 
however, I cannot consent that you should at once fix 
fortune for life, and I dwell in my humilities for the rest 
of my days. 

Dick. Hark thee, Brass, if I do not most nobly by thee, 
I'm a dog. 
Brass. And when ? 
Dick As soon as ever I am married. 
Brass. Ay, the plague take thee. 
Dick, Then you mistrust me ? 

Brass. I do, by my faith. Look you, Sir, some folks we 
mistrust, because we don't know them : others we mis- 
trust, because we do know them': and for one of these 
reasons I desire there may be a bargain beforehand : if 
not [raising his voice], look ye, Dick Amlet — 

Dick. Soft, my dear friend and companion. The dog 
will ruin me [Aside], Say, what is't will content thee ? 

Brass.. O ho ! 

Dick. But how canst thou be such a barbarian ? 
Brass. I learnt it at Algiers. 
Dicks Come, make thy Turkish demand then. 
Brass. You know you gave me a bank-bill this morn- 
ing to receive for you. 

Dick. I did so, of fifty pounds ; 'tis thine. So now 
thou art satisfied ; all is fixed. 

Brass. It is not, indeed. There's a diamond necklace 
you robb'd your mother of e'en now. 
Dick. Ah, you Jew ! 
Brass. No words. 
Dick. My dear Brass. 
Brass. I insist. 
Dick. My old friend ! 

Brass. Dick Amlet [raising his voice], I insist. 



160 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 



Dick. Ah, the cormorant [Aside]* Well, 'tis thine ; 
thou'lt never thrive with it. 

Brass. When I find it begins to do me mischief, I'll 
giye it you back again. But I must have a wedding suit. 

Dick. Well. 

Brass. A stock of linen. 

Dick. Enough. 

Brass* Not yet a silver-hilted sword. 

Dick. Well ; thou shalt have that too. Now thou hast 
everything. 

Brass. Heav'n forgive me, I forgot a ring of remem- 
brance. I would not forget all these favours for the 
world; a sparkling diamond will be always playing in my 
eye, and put me in mind of them. 

Dick. This unconscionable rogue [Aside]. Well, 1*11 
bespeak one for thee. 

Brass. Brilliant. 

Brass. It shall. But if the thing don't succeed after 
all— 

Dick. I am a man of honour and restore : and so, the 
treaty being finished, I strike my flag of defiance, and fall 
into my respects again." [ Takes off his hat. 

The ' Confederacy' is a comedy of infinite con- 
trivance and intrigue, with a matchless spirit of 
impudence. It is a fine careless expose of heart- 
less want of principle ; for there is no anger 
or severity against vice expressed in it, as in 
Wycherley. The author's morality in all cases 
except his 6 Provoked Wife' (which was under- 
taken as a penance for past peccadillos), sits 
very loose upon him. It is a little upon the 
turn; u it does somewhat smack.". Old Pal- 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONCREVE, ETC. 161 

mer, as Dick Amlet, asking his mother's 
blessing on his knee, was the very idea of a 
graceless son. His sweetheart Corinna is a 
Miss Prue, but nature works in her more 
powerfully. Lord Foppington, in 4 The Re- 
lapse,' is a most splendid caricature : he is a 
personification of the foppery and folly of dress 
and external appearance in full feather. He 
blazes out and dazzles sober reason with ridi- 
culous ostentation. Still I think this character 
is a copy from Etherege's Sir Fopling Flutter, 
and upon the whole, perhaps, Sir Fopling is the 
more natural grotesque of the two. His soul 
is more in his dress ; he is a more disinterested 
coxcomb. The lord is an ostentatious, strut- 
ting, vain-glorious blockhead ; the knight is an 
unaffected, self-complacent, serious admirer of 
his equipage and person. For instance, what 
they severally say on the subject of contem- 
plating themselves in the glass is a proof of 
this. Sir Fopling thinks a looking-glass in 
the room 6C the best company in the world ;" it 
is another self to him : Lord Foppington 
merely considers it as necessary to adjust his 
appearance, that he may make a figure in com- 
pany. The finery of the one has an imposing 
air of grandeur about it, and is studied for 

M 



162 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

effect : the other is really in love with a laced 
suit, and is hand and glove with the newest-cut 
fashion. He really thinks his tailor or peruke- 
maker the greatest man in the world, while 
his lordship treats them familiarly, as necessary 
appendages of his person. Still this coxcomb- 
nobleman's effeminacy and mock-heroic vanity 
are admirably depicted, and held up to unri- 
valled ridicule ; and his courtship of Miss 
Hoyden is excellent in all its stages, and ends 
oracularly : — 

Lord Foppington. Now, for my part, I think the wisest 
thing a man can do with an aching heart, is to put on a 
serene countenance ; for a philosophical air is the most 
becoming thing in the world to the face of a person of 
quality : I will therefore bear my disgrace like a great 
man, and let the people see I am above an affront. 
[Then turning to his brother. ] Dear Tam, since things 
are thus fallen out, pr'ythee give me leave to wish thee 
joy ; I do it de bon coeur, strike me dumb : you have mar- 
ried a woman beautiful in her person, charming in her 
airs, prudent in her conduct, constant in her inclinations, 
and of a nice morality — stap my vitals ! 

Poor Hoyden fares ill in his lordship's de- 
scription of her, though she could expect no 
better at his hands for her desertion of him e 
She wants sentiment, to be sure, but she has 
other qualifications — she is a fine bouncing 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 163 

piece of flesh and blood. Her first announce- 
ment is decisive — "Let loose the greyhound, 
and lock up Hoyden/' Her declaration, " It's 
well they've got me a husband, or, ecod, I'd 
marry the baker," comes from her mouth like 
a shot from a culverin, and leaves no doubt, 
by its effect upon the ear, that she would have 
made it good in the sequel, if she had not been 
provided for. Her indifference to the man she 
is to marry, and her attachment to the finery 
and the title, are justified by an attentive ob- 
servation of nature in its simplest guise. There 
is, however, no harm in Hoyden ; she merely 
wishes to consult her own inclination: she is 
by no means like Corinna in 6 The Confederacy/ 
2 a devilish girl at the bottom," nor is it her 
great delight to plague other people. — Sir Tun- 
belly Clumsy is the right worshipful and 
worthy father of so delicate an offspring. He 
is a coarse, substantial contrast to the flippant 
and flimsy Lord Foppington. If the one is 
not without reason ' 6 proud to be at the head 
of so prevailing a party" as that of cox- 
combs, the other may look big and console 
himself (under some affronts) with being a 
very competent representative of the once for- 
midable, though now obsolete class of country 



164 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

squires, who had no idea beyond the boun- 
daries of their own estates, or the circum- 
ference of their own persons. His unwieldy 
dulness gives, by the rule of contraries, a 
lively sense of lightness and grace : his stu- 
pidity answers all the purposes of wit. His 
portly paunch repels a jest like a woolsack: 
a sarcasm rebounds from him like a ball. His 
presence is a cure for gravity ; and he is a 
standing satire upon himself and the class in 
natural history to which he belonged. — Sir 
John Brute, in 6 The Provoked Wife/ is an 
animal of the same English growth, but of a 
cross-grained- breed. He has a spice of the 
demon mixed up with the brute ; is mischievous 
as well as stupid ; has improved his natural 
parts by a town education and example ; op- 
poses the fine-lady airs and graces of his wife 
by brawling oaths, impenetrable surliness, and 
pot-house valour ; overpowers any tendency she 
might have to vapours or hysterics by the 
fumes of tobacco and strong beer ; and thinks 
to be master in his own house by roaring in 
taverns, reeling home drunk every night, 
breaking lamps, and beating the watch. He 
does not, however, find this lordly method 
answer. He turns out to be a coward as well 



ON WYCHEIiLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 165 

as a bully, and dares not resent the injuries 
he has provoked by his unmanly behaviour. 
This was Garrick's favourite part ; and I have 
heard that his acting in the drunken scene, in 
which he was disguised not as a clergyman, 
but as a woman of the town, which was an 
alteration of his own to suit the delicacy of the 
times, was irresistible. The ironical conversa- 
tions in this play between Belinda and Lady 
Brute, as well as those in ' The Relapse ' be- 
tween Amanda and her cousin Berinthia, will 
do to compare with Congreve in the way of wit 
and studied raillery, but they will not stand the 
comparison. Araminta and Clarissa keep up 
the ball between them with more spirit, for 
their conversation is very like that of kept- 
mistresses ; and the mixture of fashionable slang 
and professed want of principle gives a sort of 
zest and high seasoning to their confidential 
communications, which Vanbrugh could supply 
as well as anybody. But he could not do with- 
out the taint of grossness and licentiousness. 
Lady Townly is not really the vicious character, 
nor quite the fine lady, which the author would 
have her to be. Lady G race is so far better ; 
she is what she pretends to be, merely sober 
and insipid. — Vanbrugh's forte was not the 
sentimental or didactic ; his genius flags and 



166 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

grows dull when it is not put into action, and 
wants the stimulus of sudden emergency, or 
the fortuitous collision of different motives, to 
call out all his force and vivacity. His anti- 
theses are happy and brilliant contrasts of cha- 
racter 5 his double entendres equivocal situations ; 
his best jokes are practical devices, not epi- 
grammatic conceits. His wit is that which is 
emphatically called mother-wit. It brings those 
who possess it, or to whom he lends it, into 
scrapes by its restlessness, and brings them out 
of them by its alacrity. Several of his favourite 
characters are knavish, adroit adventurers, who 
have all the gipsy jargon, the cunning impu- 
dence, cool presence of mind, selfishness, and 
indefatigable industry ; all the excuses, lying, 
dexterity, the intellectual juggling and leger- 
demain tricks, necessary to fit them for this 
sort of predatory warfare on the simplicity, 
follies, or vices of mankind. He discovers 
the utmost dramatic generalship in bringing 
off his characters at a pinch, and by an in- 
stantaneous ruse de guerre, when the case seems 
hopeless in any other hands. The train of his 
associations, to express the same thing in meta- 
physical language, lies in following the sugges- 
tions of his fancy into every possible connexion 
of cause and effect, rather than into every pos- 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 167 

sible combination of likeness or difference. His 
ablest characters show that they are so by dis- 
playing their ingenuity, address, and presence 
of mind in critical junctures, and in their own 
affairs, rather than their wisdom or their wit 
u in intellectual gladiatorship," or in speculating 
on the affairs and characters of other people. 

Farquhar s chief characters are also adven- 
turers ; but they are adventurers of a romantic, 
not a knavish stamp, and succeed no less by 
their honesty than their boldness. They con- 
quer their difficulties, and effect their " hair- 
breadth 'scapes" by the impulse of natural 
enthusiasm and the confidence of high princi- 
ples of gallantry and honour, as much as by 
their dexterity and readiness at expedients. 
They are real gentlemen, and only pretended 
impostors. Vanbrugh's upstart heroes are with- 
out "any relish of salvation," without gene- 
rosity, virtue, or any pretensions to it. We 
have little sympathy for them, and no respect 
at all. But we have every sort of good-will 
towards Farquhar's heroes, who have as many 
peccadillos to answer for, and play as many 
rogue's tricks, but are honest fellows at bottom. 
I know little other difference between these two 
capital writers and copyists of nature, than that 
Farquhar's nature is the better nature of the 



168 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

two. We seem to like both the author and his 
favourites. He has humour, character, and 
invention, in common with the other, with a 
more unaffected gaiety and spirit of enjoyment, 
which overflows and sparkles in all he does. 
He makes us laugh from pleasure oftener than 
from malice. He somewhere prides himself in 
having introduced on the stage the class of 
comic heroes here spoken of, which has since 
become a standard character, and which repre- 
sents the warm-hearted, rattle-brained, thought- 
less, high-spirited young fellow, who floats on 
the back of his misfortunes without repining, 
who forfeits appearances, but saves his honour 
— and he gives us to understand that it was his 
own. He did not need to be ashamed of it. 
Indeed there is internal evidence that this sort 
of character is his own, for it pervades his 
works generally, and is the moving spirit that 
informs them. His comedies have on this ac- 
count probably a greater appearance of truth 
and nature than almost any others. His inci- 
dents succeed one another with rapidity, but 
without premeditation ; his wit is easy and spon- 
taneous ; his style animated, unembarrassed, 
and flowing; his characters full of life and 
spirit, and never overstrained so as to "o'er- 
step the modesty of nature/' though they some- 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 169 

times, from haste and carelessness, seem left in 
a crude, unfinished state. There is a constant 
ebullition of gay, laughing invention, cordial 
good humour, and fine animal spirits, in his 
writings. 

Of the four writers here classed together, we 
should perhaps have courted Congreve' s ac- 
quaintance most, for his wit and the elegance 
of his manners ; Wycherley's, for his sense and 
observation on human nature ; Vanbrugh's, for 
his power of farcical description and telling a 
story ; Farquhar's, for the pleasure of his so- 
ciety, and the love of good fellowship. His fine 
gentlemen are not gentlemen of fortune and 
fashion, like those in Congreve, but are rather 
" God Almighty's gentlemen." His valets are 
good fellows : even his chambermaids are, some 
of them, disinterested and sincere. But his fine 
ladies, it must be allowed, are not so amiable, 
so witty, or accomplished, as those in Congreve. 
Perhaps they both described women in high- 
life as they found them : Congreve took their 
conversation, Farquhar their conduct. In the 
way of fashionable vice and petrifying affecta- 
tion, there is nothing to come up to his Lady 
Lurewell, in ' The Trip to the J ubilee/ She 
by no means makes good Mr Burke's courtly 
and chivalrous observation, that the evil of vice 



170 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

consists principally in its want of refinement ; 
and one benefit of the dramatic exhibition of 
such characters is, that they overturn false 
maxims of morality, and settle accounts fairly 
and satisfactorily between theory and practice. 
Her lover, Colonel Standard, is indeed an awk- 
ward incumbrance upon so fine a lady ; it was 
a character that the poet did not like ; and he 
has merely sketched him in, leaving him to 
answer for himself as well as he could, which is 
but badly. We have no suspicion, either from 
his conduct, or from any hint dropped by acci- 
dent, that he is the first seducer and the pos- 
sessor of the virgin affections of Lady Lurewell. 
The double transformation of this virago from 
vice to virtue, and from virtue to vice again, 
her plausible pretensions and artful wiles, her 
violent temper and dissolute passions, show a 
thorough knowledge of the effects both of nature 
and habit in making up human character. Far- 
quhar's own heedless turn for gallantry would 
be likely to throw him upon such a character ; 
and his goodness of heart and sincerity of dispo- 
sition would teach him to expose its wanton 
duplicity and gilded rottenness. Lurewell is 
almost as abandoned a character as Olivia, in 
' The Plain Dealer;' but the indignation excited 
against her is of a less serious and tragic cast. 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 171 

Her peevish disgust and affected horror at 
everything that comes near her, form a very 
edifying picture. Her dissatisfaction and ennui 
are not mere airs and graces worn for fashion's 
sake, but are real and tormenting inmates of 
her breast, arising from a surfeit of pleasure 
and the consciousness of guilt. All that is 
hateful in the caprice, ill humour, spite, hau- 
teur, folly, impudence, and affectation of the 
complete woman of quality, is contained in the 
scene between her and her servants in the first 
act. The depravity would be intolerable, even 
in imagination, if the weakness were not ludi- 
crous in the extreme. It shows, in the highest 
degree, the power of circumstances and example 
to pervert the understanding, the imagination, 
and even the senses. The manner in which the 
character of the gay, wild, free-hearted, but not 
altogether profligate or unfeeling Sir Harry 
Wildair, is played off against the designing, 
vindictive, imperious, uncontrollable, and un- 
reasonable humours of Lurewell, in the scene 
where she tries to convince him of his wife's 
infidelity, while he stops his ears to her pre- 
tended proofs, is not surpassed in modern 
comedy. I shall give it here: — 

Wildair. Now, dear Madam, I have secured my brother, 
you have disposed of the Colonel, and we'll rail at love 
till we ha'n't a word more to say. 



172 TST WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

Lurewell. Ay, Sir Harry. Please to sit a little, Sir. 
You must know I'm in a strange humour of asking you 
some questions. How did you like your Lady, pray, Sir 1 

Wild. Like her ! Ha, ha, ha ! So very well, faith, that 
for her very sake I'm in love with every woman I meet. 

Lure. And did matrimony please you extremely ? 

Wild. So very much, that if polygamy were allowed I 
would have a new wife every day. 

Lure. Oh, Sir Harry ! this is raillery. But your 
serious thoughts upon the matter, pray. 

Wild. Why then, Madam, to give you my true senti- 
ments of wedlock : I had a lady that I married by chance 
— she was virtuous by chance — and I loved her by great 
chance. Nature gave her beauty, education an air ; and 
fortune threw a young fellow, five-and-twenty, in her lap. 
I courted her all day, loved her all night ; she was my 
mistress one day and my wife another ; I found in one the 
variety of a thousand, and the very confinement of mar- 
riage gave me the pleasure of change. 

Lure. And she was very virtuous. 
Wild. Look ye, Madam, you know she was beautiful. 
She had good nature about her mouth, the smile of beauty 
in her cheeks, sparkling wit in her forehead, and sprightly 
love in her eyes. 

Lure. Pshaw ! I knew her very well ; the woman was 
well enough. But you don't answer my question, Sir. 

Wild. So, Madam, as I told you before, she was young 
and beautiful, I was rich and vigorous ; my estate gave a 
lustre to my love, and a swing to our enjoyment ; round, 
like the ring that made us one, our golden pleasures 
circled without end. 

Lure. Golden pleasures ! Golden fiddlesticks ! What 
d'ye tell me of your canting stuff? Was she virtuous, 
I say? 

Wild. Ready to burst with envy ; but I will torment 
thee a little [aside]. So, Madam, I powdered to please 
her, she dressed to engage me ; we toyed away the morn- 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 173 

ing in amorous nonsense, lolled away the evening in the 
park or the playhouse, and all the night — hem ! 

Lure. Look ye, Sir, answer my question, or I shall 
take it ill. 

Wild. Then, Madam, there was never such a pattern of 
unity. Her wants were still prevented by my supplies ; 
my own heart whispered me her desires, 'cause she herself 
was there ; no contention ever rose, but the dear strife of 
who should most oblige ; no noise about authority ; for 
neither would stoop to command, 'cause both thought it 
glory to obey. 

Lure. Stuff! stuff! stuff! I won't believe a word on't. 

Wild. Ha, ha, ha ! Then, Madam, we never felt the 
yoke of matrimony, because our inclinations made us one 
—a power superior to the forms of wedlock. The mar- 
riage torch had lost its weaker light in the bright flame of 
mutual love that joined our hearts before ; then — 

Lure. Hold, hold, Sir ; I cannot bear it, Sir Harry, 
I'm affronted. 

Wild. Ha, ha, ha ! Affronted ! 

Lure. Yes, Sir ; 'tis an affront to any woman to hear 
another commended, and I will resent it. In short, Sir 
Harry, your wife was a — 

Wild. Buz, Madam— no detraction. I'll tell you what 
she was. So much an angel in her conduct, that though 
I saw another in her arms, I should have thought the 
devil had raised the phantom, and my more conscious 
reason had given my eyes the lie. 

Lure. Very well ! then I a'n't to be believed, it seems. 
But, d'ye hear, Sir ! 

Wild. Nay, Madam, do you hear ! I tell you 'tis not 
in the power of malice to cast a blot upon her fame ; and 
though the vanity of our sex, and the envy of yours, 
conspired both against her honour, I would not hear a 
syllable. [Stopping his ears.] 



174 ON WYCHERLEYj CONGREVE, ETC. 



Lure. Why then, as I hope to breathe, you shall hear 
it. The picture ! the picture ! the picture ! 

[Bawling aloud.'] 

Wild. Ran, tan, tan. A pistol-bullet from ear to ear. 

Lure. That picture which you had just now from the 
French Marquis for a thousand pounds ; that very picture 
did your very virtuous wife send to the Marquis as a 
pledge of her very virtuous and dying affection. So that 
you are both robbed of your honour and cheated of your 
money. [Loud. ] 

Wild. Louder, louder, Madam. 

Lure. I tell you, Sir, your wife was a jilt ; I know it, 
I'll swear it. She virtuous ! she was a devil ! 
Wild. [Sings]. Tal, al, deral. 

Lure. Was ever the like seen ! He won't hear me. I 
burst with malice, and now he won't mind me ! Won't 
you hear me yet ? 

Wild. No, no, Madam ! 

Lure. Nay, then I can't bear it. [Bursts out a crying.) 
Sir, I must say that you're an unworthy person, to use a 
woman of quality at this rate, when she has her heart full 
of malice ; I don't know but it may make me miscarry. 
Sir, I say again and again, that she was no better than 
one of us, and I know it ; I have seen it with my eyes, 
so I have. 

Wild. Good heav'ns deliver me, I beseech thee ! How 
shall I 'scape ? 

Lure. Will you hear me yet? Dear Sir Harry, do but 
hear me ; I'm longing to speak. 

Wild. Oh ! I have it. — Hush, hush, hush. 

Lure. Eh ! what's the matter ? 

Wild. A mouse ! a mouse ! a mouse ! 

Lure. Where ? where ? where ? 

Wild. Your petticoats, your petticoats, Madam. [Lure' 
well shrieks and runs.] my head ! I was never worsted 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 175 



by a woman before. But I have heard so much to know 
the Marquis to be a villain. [Knocking,] Nay, then, I 
must run for't. [Runs out and returns.] The entry is 
stopped by a chair coming in ; and something there is in 
that chair that I will discover, if I can find a place to hide 
myself. [Goes to the closet door.] Fast! I have keys 
about me for most locks about St James's. Let me see. 
[Tries one key.] No, no; this opens my Lady Planthorn's 
back-door. [Tries another.] Nor this ; this is the key 
to my Lady Stakeall's garden. [ Tries a third. ] Ay, ay, 
this does it, faith. [Goes into the closet] 

The dialogue between Cherry and Archer, in 
* The Beaux' Stratagem/ in which she repeats 
her well- conned love catechism, is as good as 
this, but not so fit to be repeated anywhere but 
on the stage. ' The Beaux' Stratagem ' is the 
best of his plays as a whole ; infinitely lively, 
bustling, and full of point and interest. 

The assumed disguise of the two principal 
characters, Archer and Aim well, is a perpetual 
amusement to the mind. Scrub is an indis- 
pensable appendage to a country gentleman's 
kitchen, and an exquisite confidant for the 
secrets of young ladies. 6 The Recruiting 
Ofiicer ' is not one of Farquhar's best come- 
dies, though it is light and entertaining. It 
contains chiefly sketches and hints of charac- 
ters, and the conclusion of the plot is rather 
lame. He informs us, in the dedication to the 
published play, that it was founded on some 



176 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

local and personal circumstances that happened 
in Shropshire, where he was himself a recruit- 
ing officer ; and it seems not unlikely that most 
of the scenes actually took place at the foot of 
the Wrekin. 6 The Inconstant 9 is much supe- 
rior to it. The romantic interest and impres- 
sive catastrophe of this play, I thought, had 
been borrowed from the more poetical and 
tragedy-practised muse of Beaumont and Flet- 
cher 5 but I find they are taken from an actual 
circumstance which took place in the author's 
knowledge, at Paris. His other pieces, 6 Love 
and a Bottle/ and ' The Twin Rivals/ are not 
on a par with these, and no longer in possession 
of the stage. The public are, after all, not the 
worst judges. Farquhar's 6 Letters/ prefixed 
to the collection of his plays, are lively, good- 
humoured, and sensible, and contain, among 
other things, an admirable exposition of the 
futility of the dramatic unities of time and 
place. 

This criticism preceded Dennis's remarks on 
that subject, in his strictures on Mr Addison's 
6 Cato/ and completely anticipates all that Dr 
Johnson has urged so unanswerably on the 
subject in his preface to Shakspeare. 

We may date the decline of English comedy 
from the time of Farquhar. 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 177 

For this several causes might be assigned in 
the political and moral changes of the times ; 
but, among other minor ones, Jeremy Collier, 
in his 6 View of the English Stage/ frightened 
the poets, and did all he could to spoil the 
stage by pretending to reform it; that is, by 
making it an echo of the pulpit, instead of a re- 
flection of the manners of the world. He com- 
plains bitterly of the profaneness of the stage ; 
and is for fining the actors for every oath they 
utter, to put an end to the practice; as if 
common swearing had been an invention of the 
poets and stage-players. He cannot endure 
that the fine gentlemen drink, and the fine ladies 
intrigue, in the scenes of Congreve andWy- 
cherley, when things so contrary to law and 
gospel happened nowhere else. He is vehement 
against duelling, as a barbarous custom, of 
which the example is suffered with impunity 
nowhere but on the stage. He is shocked at 
the number of fortunes that are irreparably 
ruined by the vice of gaming on the boards of 
the theatres. He seems to think that every 
breach of the ten commandments begins and 
ends there. He complains that the tame hus- 
bands of his time are laughed at on the stage, 
and that the successful gallants triumph, which 
was without precedent either in the city or the 

N 



178 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

court. He does not think it enough that the 
stage " shows vice its own image, scorn its own 
feature/' unless they are damned at the same 
instant, and carried off ( like Don Juan ) by- 
real devils to the infernal regions, before the 
faces of the spectators. It seems that the au- 
thor would have been contented to be present 
at a comedy or a farce, like a Father Inquisitor, 
if there was to be an auto dafi at the end, to 
burn both the actors and the poet. This sour, 
nonjuring critic has a great horror and repug- 
nance at poor human nature in nearly all its 
shapes, of the existence of which he appears 
only to be aware through the stage : and this he 
considers as the only exception to the practice of 
piety, and the performance of the whole duty 
of man ; and seems fully convinced, that if this 
nuisance were abated, the whole world would be 
regulated according to the creed and the cate- 
chism. — This is a strange blindness and infatua- 
tion ! He forgets, in his over-heated zeal, two 
things : First, that the stage must be copied 
from real life, that the manners represented 
there must exist elsewhere, and " denote a- fore- 
gone conclusion, " to satisfy common sense. — 
Secondly, that the stage cannot shock common 
decency, according to the notions that prevail 
of it in any age or country, because the exhibition 



ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 179 

is public. If the pulpit, for instance, had ba- 
nished all vice and imperfection from the world, 
as our critic would suppose, we should not have 
seen the offensive reflection of them on the 
stage, which he resents as an affront to the 
cloth, and an outrage on religion. On the 
contrary, with such a sweeping reformation as 
this theory implies, the office of the preacher, 
as well as of the player, would be gone ; and if 
the common peccadillos of lying, swearing, 
intriguing, fighting, drinking, gaming, and 
other such obnoxious dramatic common-places, 
were once fairly got rid of in reality, neither the 
comic poet would be able to laugh at them on 
the stage, nor our good-natured author to con- 
sign them over to damnation elsewhere. The 
work is, however, written with ability, and did 
much mischief: it produced those do~me-good, 
lack-a-daisical, whining, make-believe comedies 
in the next age, (such as Steele's 6 Conscious 
Lovers/ and others,) which are enough to set 
one to sleep, and where the author tries in vain 
to be merry and wise in the same breath; in 
which the utmost stretch of licentiousness goes 
no farther than the gallant's being suspected of 
keeping a mistress, and the highest proof of 
courage is given in his refusing to accept a 
challenge. 



180 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 

In looking into the old editions of the come- 
dies of the last age, I find the names of the best 
actors of thos e times, of whom scarcely any 
record is left but in Colley Cibber's Life, and 
the monument to Mrs Oldfield in Westminster 
Abbey; which Voltaire reckons among the 
proofs of the liberality, wisdom, and politeness 
of the English nation : — 

" Let no rude hand deface it, 
And its forlorn hicjacet." 

Authors after their deaths live in their works : 
players only in their epitaphs and the breath of 
common tradition. They " die and leave the 
world no copy. " Their uncertain popularity is 
as short-lived as it is dazzling, and in a few 
years nothing is known of them but that they 
were. 



LECTURE V. 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 



" The proper study of mankind is man." 



I now come to speak of that sort of writing 
which has been so successfully cultivated in 
this country by our periodical Essayists, and 
which consists in applying the talents and 
resources of the mind to all that mixed mass 
of human affairs, which, though not included 
under the head of any regular art, science, or 
profession, falls under the cognizance of the 
writer, and " comes home to the business and 
bosoms of men." Quicquid agunt homines 
nostri farrago libetti, is the general motto of 
this department of literature. It does not 
treat of minerals or fossils, of the virtues of 
plants, or the influence of planets ; it does not 
meddle with forms of belief, or systems of 



182 ON THE PEKIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

philosophy, nor launch into the world of 
spiritual existences ; but it makes familiar with 
the world of men and women, records their 
actions, assigns their motives, exhibits their 
whims, characterizes their pursuits in all their 
singular and endless variety, ridicules their 
absurdities, exposes their inconsistencies, a holds 
the mirror up to nature, and shows the very age 
and body of the time, its form, and pressure 
takes minutes of our dress, air, looks, words, 
thoughts, and actions ; shows us what we are, 
and what we are not; plays the whole game 
of human life over before us, and by making 
us enlightened spectators of its many-coloured 
scenes, enables us (if possible) to become tole- 
rably reasonable agents in the one in which we 
have to perform a part. " The act and practic 
part of life is thus made the mistress of our 
theorique." It is the best and most natural 
course of study. It is in morals and manners 
what the experimental is in natural philosophy, 
as opposed to the dogmatical method. It does 
not deal in sweeping clauses of proscription and 
anathema, but in nice distinctions and liberal 
constructions. It makes up its general accounts 
from details, its few theories from many facts. 
It does not try to prove all black or all white 
as it wishes, but lays on the intermediate colours 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 183 



(and most of them not unpleasing ones), as it 
finds them blended with 66 the web of our life, 
which is of a mingled yarn, good and ill 
together. " It inquires what human life is and 
has been, to show what it ought to be. It 
follows it into courts and camps, into town and 
country, into rustic sports or learned disputations, 
into the various shades of prejudice or igno- 
rance, of refinement or barbarism, into its 
private haunts or public pageants, into its 
weaknesses and littlenesses, its professions and 
its practices — before it pretends to distinguish 
right from wrong, or one thing from another. 
How, indeed, should it do so otherwise? 

" Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, 
Plenius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit." 

The writers I speak of are, if not moral phi- 
losophers, moral historians, and that's better ; 
or if they are both, they found the one character 
upon the other; their premises precede their 
conclusions; and we put faith in their testi- 
mony, for we know that it is true. 

Montaigne was the first person who in his 
Essays led the way to this kind of writing among 
the moderns. The great merit of Montaigne 
then was, that he may be said to have been the 
first who had the courage to say as an author 
what he felt as a man. And as courage is 



184 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

generally the effect of conscious strength, he 
was probably led to do so by the richness, 
truth, and force of his own observations on 
books and men. He was, in the truest sense, 
a man of original mind, that is, he had the 
power of looking at things for himself, or as 
they really were, instead of blindly trusting 
to, and fondly repeating what others told him 
that they were. He got rid of the go-cart 
of prejudice and affectation, with the learned 
lumber that follows at their heels, because he 
could do without them. In taking up his pen 
he did not set up for a philosopher, wit, orator, 
or moralist, but he became all these by merely 
daring to tell us whatever passed through his 
mind, in its naked simplicity and force, that he 
thought anyways worth communicating. He 
did not, in the abstract character of an author, 
undertake to say all that could be said upon a 
subject, but what in his capacity as an inquirer 
after truth he happened to know about it. He 
was neither a pedant nor a bigot. He neither 
supposed that he was bound to know all things, 
nor that all things were bound to conform to 
what he had fancied or would have them to be. 
In treating of men and manners, he spoke of 
them as he found them, not according to pre- 
conceived notions and abstract dogmas ; and he 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 185 

began by teaching us what he himself was. In 
criticising books he did not compare them with 
rules and systems, but told us what he saw to 
like or dislike in them. He did not take his 
standard of excellence " according to an exact 
scale " of Aristotle, or fall out with a work that 
was good for anything, because " not one of the 
angles at the four corners was a right one." He 
was, in a word, the first author who was not a 
book-maker, and who wrote, not to make con- 
verts of others to established creeds and preju- 
dices, but to satisfy his own mind of the truth 
of things. In this respect we know not which 
to be most charmed with, the author or the 
man. There is an inexpressible frankness and 
sincerity, as well as power, in what he writes. 
There is no attempt at imposition or concealment, 
no juggling tricks or solemn mouthings, no 
laboured attempts at proving himself always in 
the right, and everybody else in the wrong ; he 
says what is uppermost, lays open what floats at 
the top or the bottom of his mind, and deserves 
Pope's character of him, where he professes to 

" pour out all as plain 

As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne."* 



* Why Pope should say in reference to him, " Or more 
wise Charron," is not easy to determine. 



186 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

He does not converse with us like a pedagogue 
with his pupil, whom he wishes to make as 
great a blockhead as himself, but like a phi- 
losopher and friend who has passed through life 
with thought and observation, and is willing to 
enable others to pass through it with pleasure 
and profit. A writer of this stamp, I confess, 
appears to me as much superior to a common 
bookworm as a library of real books is superior 
to a mere book-case, painted and lettered on the 
outside with the names of celebrated works. As 
he was the first to attempt this new way of 
writing, so the same strong natural impulse 
which prompted the undertaking, carried him 
to the end of his career. The same force and 
honesty of mind which urged him to throw off 
the shackles of custom and prejudice, would 
enable him to complete his triumph over them. 
He has left little for his successors to achieve in 
the way of just and original speculation on 
human life. Nearly all the thinking of the two 
last centuries of that kind which the French 
denominate morale observatrice, is to be found 
in Montaigne's Essays : there is a germ, at 
least, and generally much more. He sowed 
the seed and cleared away the rubbish, even 
where others have reaped the fruit, or cultivated 
and decorated the soil to a greater degree of 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 187 

nicety and perfection. There is no one to whom 
the old Latin adage is more applicable than to 
Montaigne, " Pereant isti qui ante nos nostra 
dixerunt" There has been no new impulse 
given to thought since his time. Among the 
specimens of criticisms on authors which he has 
left us, are those on Virgil, Ovid, and Boccaccio, 
in the account of books which he thinks worth 
reading, or (which is the same thing) which he 
finds he can read in his old age, and which may 
be reckoned among the few criticisms which 
are worth reading at any age.* 



* As an instance of his general power of reasoning, I 
shall give his chapter entitled One Man's Profit is another's 
Loss, in which he has nearly anticipated Mandeville's 
celebrated paradox of private vices being public bene- 
fits :— 

" Demades, the Athenian, condemned a fellow-citizen, 
who furnished out funerals, for demanding too great a 
price for his goods ; and if he got an estate, it must be by 
the death of a great many people ; but I think it a sen- 
tence ill grounded, forasmuch as no profit can be made 
but at the expense of some other person, and that every 
kind of gain is by that rule liable to be condemned. The 
tradesman thrives by the debauchery of youth, and the 
farmer by the dearness of corn ; the architect by the ruin 
of buildings, the officers of justice by quarrels and law- 
suits ; nay, even the honour and function of divines is 
owing to our mortality and vices. No physician takes 
pleasure in the health even of his best friends, said the 
ancient Greek comedian, nor soldier in the peace of his 



188 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

Montaigne's Essays were translated into Eng- 
lish by Charles Cotton, who was one of the 
wits and poets of the age of Charles II ; and 
Lord Halifax, one of the noble critics of that 
day, declared it to be a the book in the world 
he was the best pleased with." This mode of 
familiar Essay writing, free from the trammels 
of the schools and the airs of professed author- 
ship, was successfully imitated, about the same 
time, by Cowley and Sir William Temple in 
their miscellaneous Essays, which are very 
agreeable and learned talking upon paper. Lord 
Shaftesbury, on the contrary, who aimed at the 
same easy, degage mode of communicating his 
thoughts to the world, has quite spoiled his 
matter, which is sometimes valuable, by his 

country ; and so of the rest. And, what is yet worse, let 
every one but examine his own heart, and he will find that 
his private wishes spring and grow up at the expense of 
some other person. Upon which consideration this thought 
came into my head, that nature does not deviate from her 
general policy; for that naturalists hold that the birth, 
nourishment, and increase of any one thing is the decay 
and corruption of another: — 

Nam quodcunque suis mutatum Jinibus exit, 
Continuo hoc mors est illius, quod fuit ante. 

" For what from its own confines chang'd doth pass, 
Is straight the death of what before it was. " 

Vol, I, Chap. xxi. 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 189 

manner, in which he carries a certain flaunting, 
flowery, figurative, flirting style of amicable 
condescension to the reader, to an excess more 
tantalising than the most starched and ridiculous 
formality of the age of James I. There is 
nothing so tormenting as the affectation of ease 
and freedom from affectation. 

The ice being thus thawed, and the barrier 
that kept authors at a distance from common 
sense and feeling broken through, the transi- 
tion was not difficult from Montaigne and his 
imitators to our Periodical Essayists. These 
last applied the same unrestrained expression 
of their thoughts to the more immediate and 
passing scenes of life, to temporary and local 
matters ; and in order to discharge the invi- 
dious office of Censor Morum more freely, and 
with less responsibility, assumed some fictitious 
and humorous disguise, which, however, in a 
great degree, corresponded to their own pecu- 
liar habits and character. By thus concealing 
their own name and person under the title 
of the ' Tatler,' 6 Spectator,' &c, they were 
enabled to inform us more fully of what was 
passing in the world, while the dramatic con- 
trast and ironical point of view to which the 
whole is subjected, added a greater liveliness 
and piquancy to the descriptions. The philoso- 



190 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

pher and wit here commences newsmonger, 
makes himself master of u the perfect spy o' th' 
time/' and from his various walks and turns 
through life, brings home little curious speci- 
mens of the humours, opinions, and manners of 
his contemporaries, as the botanist brings home 
different plants and weeds, or the mineralogist 
different shells and fossils, to illustrate their 
several theories, and be useful to mankind. 

The first of these papers that was attempted 
in this country was set up by Steele in the be- 
ginning of the last century ; and of all our peri- 
odical Essayists, the 6 Tatler' (for that was the 
name he assumed) has always appeared to me 
the most accomplished and agreeable. Mon- 
taigne, whom I have proposed to consider as 
the father of this kind of personal authorship 
among the moderns, in which the reader is ad- 
mitted behind the curtain, and sits down with 
the writer in his gown and slippers, was a most 
magnanimous and undisguised egotist; but 
Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., was the more disinte- 
rested gossip of the two. The French author is 
contented to describe the peculiarities of his 
own mind and person, which he does with a 
most copious and unsparing hand. The Eng- 
lish journalist good-naturedly lets you into 
the secret both of his own affairs and those of 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 191 



his neighbours. A young lady, on the other 
side of Temple Bar, cannot be seen at her glass 
for half a day together, but Mr Bickerstaff 
takes due notice of it; and he has the first 
intelligence of the symptoms of the telle passion 
appearing in any young gentleman at the west 
end of the town. The departures and arrivals 
of widows with handsome jointures, either to 
b ury their grief in the country, or to procure a 
second husband in town, are regularly recorded 
in his pages. He is well acquainted with the 
celebrated beauties of the preceding age at the 
court of Charles II ; and the old gentleman 
(as he feigns himself) often grows romantic in 
recounting " the disastrous strokes which his 
youth suffered" from the glances of their 
bright eyes, and their unaccountable caprices. 
In particular, he dwells with a secret satisfac- 
tion on the recollection of one of his mistresses, 
who left him for a richer rival, and whose con- 
stant reproach to her husband, on occasion of 
any quarrel between them, was " I, that might 
have married the famous Mr Bickerstaff, to be 
treated in this manner ! " The club at the 
Trumpet consists of a set of persons almost as 
well worth knowing as himself. The cavalcade 
of the justice of the peace, the knight of the 
shire, the country squire, and the young gentle- 



192 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

man, his nephew, who came to wait on him at 
his chambers, in such form and ceremony, 
seem not to have settled the order of their pre- 
cedence to this hour \ and I should hope that 
the upholsterer and his companions, who used 
to sun themselves in the Green Park, and who 
broke their rest and fortunes to maintain the 
balance of power in Europe, stand as fair a 
chance for immortality as some modern politi- 
cians. Mr Bickerstaff himself is a gentleman 
and a scholar, a humorist and a man of th 
world, with a great deal of nice easy naivete about 
him. If he walks out and is caught in a shower 
of rain, he makes amends for this unlucky ac- 
cident by a criticism on the shower in Virgil, 
and concludes with a burlesque copy of verses 
on a city shower. He entertains us, when he 
dates from his own apartment, with a quotation 
from Plutarch, or a moral reflection ; from the 
Grecian coffee-house with politics, and from 
Will's, or the Temple, with the poets and 
players, the beaux and men of wit and plea- 
sure about town. In reading the pages of 
the 'Tatler,' we seem as if suddenly carried 
back to the age of Queen Anne, of toupees and 
full-bottomed periwigs. The whole appearance 
of our dress and manners undergoes a delight- 
ful metamorphosis. We are surprised with the 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 



rustling of hoops, and the glittering of paste 
buckles. The beaux and the belles are of a 
quite different species from what they are at 
present ; we distinguish the dappers, the smarts, 
and the pretty fellows, as they pass by Mr 
Lilly's shop-windows in the Strand ; we are in- 
troduced to Betterton and Mrs Oldfield behind 
the scenes ; are made familiar with the per- 
sons and performances of Mr Penkethman and 
Mr Bullock ; we listen to a dispute at a tavern 
on the merits of the Duke of Marlborough, or 
Marshal Turenne ; or are present at the first 
rehearsal of a play by Vanbrugh, or the reading 
of a new poem by Mr Pope. The privilege of 
thus virtually transporting ourselves to past 
times, is even greater than that of visiting dis- 
tant places in reality. London a hundred years 
ago would be much better worth seeing than 
Paris at the present moment. 

It may be said, that all this is to be found, 
in the same or a greater degree, in the i Spec- 
tator/ For myself, I do not think so ; or, at 
least, there is in the last work a much greater 
proportion of common-place matter. I have, 
on this account, always preferred the 'Tatler' to 
the 1 Spectator.' Whether it is owing to my 
having been earlier or better acquainted with 
the one than the other, my pleasure in reading 



194 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

these two admirable works is not at all in pro- 
portion to their comparative reputation. The 
4 Tatler ' contains only half the number of 
volumes, and, I will venture to say, at least an 
equal quantity of sterling wit and sense. "The 
first sprightly runnings" are there— it has more 
of the original spirit, more of the freshness and 
stamp of nature. The indications of character 
and strokes of humour are more true and fre- 
quent ; the reflections that suggest themselves 
arise more from the occasion, and are less spun 
out into regular dissertations. They are more 
like the remarks which occur in sensible con- 
versation, and less like a lecture. Something 
is left to the understanding of the reader. 
Steele seems to have gone into his closet chiefly 
to set down what he observed out of doors. 
Addison seems to have spent most of his time in 
his study, and to have spun out and wire-drawn 
the hints, which he borrowed from Steele, or 
took from nature, to the utmost. I am far from 
wishing to depreciate Addison's talents, but I 
am anxious to do justice to Steele, who was, I 
think, upon the whole, a less artificial and more 
original writer. The humorous descriptions 
of Steele resemble loose sketches, or fragments 
of a comedy ; those of Addison are rather com- 
ments, or ingenious paraphrases, on the genuine 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 195 



text. The characters of the club not only in 
the 6 Tatler,' but in the 6 Spectator/ were 
drawn by Steele. That of Sir Roger de Co- 
verley is among the number. Addison has, 
however, gained himself immortal honour by 
his manner of filling up this last character. 
Who is there that can forget, or be insensible 
to, the inimitable, nameless graces, and varied 
traits of nature and of old English character, in 
it — to his unpretending virtues and amiable 
weaknesses — to his modesty, generosity, hos- 
pitality, and eccentric whims — to the respect of 
his neighbours, and the affection of his domes- 
tics — to his wayward, hopeless, secret passion 
for his fair enemy, the widow, in which there 
is more of real romance and true delicacy than 
in a thousand tales of knight-errantry — (we 
perceive the hectic flush of his cheek, the 
faltering of his tongue in speaking of her be- 
witching airs and " the whiteness of her hand") 
— to the havoc he makes among the game in 
his neighbourhood — to his speech from the 
bench, to show the 'Spectator' what is thought 
of him in the country — to his unwillingness to 
be put up as a sign -post , and his having his 
own likeness turned into the Saracen's head — 
to his gentle reproof of the baggage of a gipsy 
that tells him u he has a widow in his line of 



196 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

life" — to his doubts as to the existence of 
witchcraft, and protection of reputed witches — 
to his account of the family pictures, and his 
choice of a chaplain — to his falling asleep at 
church, and his reproof of J ohn Williams, as 
soon as he recovered from his nap, for talking 
in sermon-time. The characters of Will 
Wimble and Will Honeycomb are not a whit 
behind their friend, Sir Roger, in delicacy and 
felicity. The delightful simplicity and good- 
humoured officiousness in the one are set off by 
the graceful affectation and courtly pretension 
in the other. How long since I first became 
acquainted with these two characters in the 
' Spectator ! ' What old-fashioned friends they 
seem, and yet I am not tired of them, like so 
many other friends, nor they of me ! How 
airy these abstractions of the poet's pen stream 
over the dawn of our acquaintance with human 
life ! how they glance their fairest colours on 
the prospect before us ! how pure they remain 
in it to the last, like the rainbow in the evening 
cloud, which the rude hand of time can neither 
soil nor dissipate ! What a pity that we can- 
not find the reality, and yet if we did, the 
dream would be over. I once thought I 
knew a Will Wimble, and a Will Honey- 
comb, but they turned out but indifferently . 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 197 



the originals in the 6 Spectator' still read word 
for word, the same that they always did. We 
have only to turn to the page, and find them 
where we left them ! — Many of the most exqui- 
site pieces in the 6 Tatler/ it is to be observed, 
are Addison's, as the ' Court of Honour/ and 
the 4 Personification of Musical Instruments/ 
with almost all those papers that form regular 
sets or series, I do not know whether the 
picture of the family of an old college acquain- 
tance, in the ' Tatler/ where the children 
run to let Mr BickerstafT in at the door, and 
where the one that loses the race that way, turns 
back to tell the father that he is come; with the 
nice gradation of incredulity in the little boy, 
who is got into 6 Guy of Warwick/ and the ' Seven 
Champions/ and who shakes his head at the 
improbability of 'JEsop's Fables/ is Steele's 
or Addison's, though I believe it belongs to 
the former.* The account of the two sisters, 

* It is Steele's ; and the whole paper ( No. 95), 
observes Mr Leigh Hunt, is in his most delightful man- 
ner. The dream about the mistress, however, is given 
to Addison by the editors, and the general style of that 
number is his ; though, from the story's being related 
personally of Bickerstaff, who is also represented as having 
been at that time in the army, we conclude it to have 
originally come from Steele, perhaps in the course of 
conversation. The particular incident is much more like 
a story of his than of Addison's, 



198 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

one of whom held up her head higher than 
ordinary, from having on a pair of flowered 
garters, and that of the married lady who 
complained to the 'Tatler' of the neglect of her 
husband, with her answers to some home ques- 
tions that were put to her, are unquestionably 
teele's. If the 'Tatler' is not inferior to the 
' Spectator' as a record of manners and character, 
it is very superior to it in the interest of many 
of the stories. Several of the incidents related 
there by Steele have never been surpassed in 
the heart-rending pathos of private distress. 
I might refer to those of the lover and his 
mistress, when the theatre, in which they 
were, caught fire ; of the bridegroom, who by 
accident kills his bride on the day of their 
marriage; the story of Mr Eustace and his 
wife ; and the fine dream about his own 
mistress w r hen a youth. What has given its 
superior reputation to the i Spectator,' is the 
greater gravity of its pretensions, its moral 
dissertations and critical reasonings, by which 
I confess myself less edified than by other 
things, which are thought more lightly of. 
Systems and opinions change, but nature is 
always true. It is the extremely moral and 
didactic tone of the i Spectator ' which makes us 
apt to think of Addison (according to Man- 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 199 



deville's sarcasm) as "a parson in a tie-wig." 
Many of his moral Essays are, however, 
exquisitely beautiful and happy. Such are 
the reflections on cheerfulness, those in West- 
minster Abbey, on the Royal Exchange, and 
particularly some very affecting ones on the 
death of a young lady in the fourth volume. 
These, it must be allowed, are the perfection 
of elegant sermonising. His critical Essays 
are not so good. I prefer Steele's occasional 
selection of beautiful poetical passages, without 
any affectation of analysing their beauties, to 
Addison's fine-spun theories. The best cri- 
ticism in the 6 Spectator,' that on the Cartoons 
of Raphael, of which Mr Fuseli has availed 
himself with great spirit in his Lectures, is by 
Steele.* I owed this acknowledgment to a 
writer who has so often put me in good humour 
with myself, and everything about me, when 
few things else could, and when the tomes of 
casuistry and ecclesiastical history, with which 
the little duodecimo volumes of the 6 Tatler ' 
were overwhelmed and surrounded, in the only 



* The antithetical style and verbal paradoxes which 
Burke was so fond of, in which the epithet is a seeming 
contradiction to the substantive, such as " proud submis- 
sion" and "dignified obedience," are, I think, first to be 
found in the * Tatler.' 



200 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

library to which I had access when a boy, 
had tried their tranquillising effects upon me 
in vain. I had not long ago in my hands, by 
favour of a friend, an original copy of the 
quarto edition of the 4 Tatler/ with a list of the 
subscribers. It is curious to see some names 
there which we should hardly think of (that 
of Sir Isaac Newton is among them), and 
also to observe the degree of interest excited 
by those of the different persons, which is 
not determined according to the rules of the 
Herald's College. One literary name lasts as 
long as a whole race of heroes and their de- 
scendants ! The ' Guardian,' which followed 
the 6 Spectator/ was, as may be supposed, 
inferior to it. 

The dramatic and conversational turn which 
forms the distinguishing feature and greatest 
charm of the 6 Spectator' and 6 Tatler/ is quite 
lost in the 6 Rambler/ by Dr Johnson. There 
is no reflected light thrown on human life from 
an assumed character, nor any direct one from 
a display of the author's own. The 'Tatler* 
and f Spectator' are, as it were, made up of 
notes and memorandums of the events and 
incidents of the day, with finished studies 
after nature, and characters fresh from the 
life, which the writer moralises upon, and 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 201 



turns to account as they come before him. 
The i Rambler' is a collection of moral 
Essays, or scholastic theses, written on set 
subjects, and of which the individual cha- 
racters and incidents are merely artificial 
illustrations, brought in to give a pretended 
relief to the dryness of didactic discussion. 
The ' Rambler 9 is a splendid and imposing 
common-place-book of general topics, and 
rhetorical declamation on the conduct and 
business of human life. In this sense, there 
is hardly a reflection that had been suggested 
on such subjects which is not to be found in 
this celebrated work, and there is, perhaps, 
hardly a reflection to be found in it which 
had not been already suggested and developed 
by some other author, or in the common course 
of conversation. The mass of intellectual 
wealth here heaped together is immense, but 
it is rather the result of gradual accumulation, 
the produce of the general intellect, labouring 
in the mine of knowledge and reflection, than 
dug out of the quarry, and dragged into the light 
by the industry and sagacity of a single mind. 
I am not here saying that Dr Johnson was a 
man without originality, compared with the 
ordinary run of men's minds, but he was not 
a man of original thought or genius, in the 



202 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

sense in which Montaigne or Lord Bacon was 
He opened no new vein of precious ore, no 
did he light upon any single pebbles of un- 
common size and unrivalled lustre. We seldom 
meet with anything to f * give us pause ; " he 
does not set us thinking for the first time. 
His reflections present themselves like remi- 
niscences ; do not disturb the ordinary march 
of our thoughts ; arrest our attention by the 
stateliness of their appearance, and the cost- 
liness of their garb, but pass on and mingle 
with the throng of our impressions. After 
closing the volumes of the 6 Rambler/ there 
is nothing that we remember as a new truth 
gained to the mind, nothing indelibly stamped 
upon the memory ; nor is there any passage 
that we wish to turn to as embodying any 
known principle or observation, with such force 
and beauty that justice can only be done to 
the idea in the author's own words. Such, 
for instance, are many of the passages to be 
found in Burke, which shine by their own light, 
belong to no class, have neither equal nor 
counterpart, and of which we say that no one 
but the author could have written them ! There 
is neither the same boldness of design nor 
mastery of execution in Johnson. In the one, 
the spark of genius seems to have met with its 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 203 



congenial matter : the shaft is sped : the forked 
lightning dresses up the face of nature in ghastly 
smiles, and the loud thunder rolls far away from 
the ruin that is made. Dr Johnson's style, on 
the contrary, resembles rather the rumbling of 
mimic thunder at one of our theatres ; and the 
light he throws upon a subject is like the dazzling 
effect of phosphorus, or an ignis fatuus of 
words. There is a wide difference, however, 
between perfect originality and perfect common- 
place : neither ideas nor expressions are trite or 
vulgar because they are not quite new. They 
are valuable, and ought to be repeated, if they 
have not become quite common; and Johnson's 
style both of reasoning and imagery holds the 
middle rank between startling novelty and vapid 
common-place. Johnson has as much origi- 
nality of thinking as Addison; but then he 
wants his familiarity of illustration, knowledge 
of character, and delightful humour. — What 
most distinguishes Dr Johnson from other 
writers, is the pomp and uniformity of his style. 
All his periods are cast in the same mould, are 
of the same size and shape, and consequently 
have little fitness to the variety of things he 
professes to treat of. His subjects are familiar, 
but the author is always upon stilts. He has 
neither ease nor simplicity, and his efforts at 



204 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

playfulness, in part, remind one of the lines in 
Milton :— 

« The elephant 

To make them sport wreath'd his proboscis lithe." 

His 'Letters from Correspondents/ in particular, 
are more pompous and unwieldly than what he 
writes in his own person. This want of relaxation 
and variety of manner has, I think, after the first 
effects of novelty and surprise were over, been 
prejudicial to the matter. It takes from the 
general power, not only to please, but to instruct. 
The monotony of style produces an apparent 
monotony of ideas. What is really striking 
and valuable, is lost in the vain ostentation and 
circumlocution of the expression ; for when we 
find the same pains and pomp of diction be- 
stowed upon the most trifling as upon the most 
important parts of a sentence or discourse, we 
grow tired of distinguishing between pretension 
and reality, and are disposed to confound the 
tinsel and bombast of the phraseology with 
want of weight in the thoughts. Thus, from 
the imposing and oracular nature of the style, 
people are tempted at first to imagine that our 
author's speculations are all wisdom and pro- 
fundity : till having found out their mistake in 
some instances, they suppose that there is no- 
thing but common-place in them, concealed 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 205 



under verbiage and pedantry ; and in both they 
are wrong. The fault of Dr Johnson's style 
is, that it reduces all things to the same 
artificial and unmeaning level. It destroys all 
shades of difference, the association between 
words and things. It is a perpetual paradox 
and innovation. He condescends to the fa- 
miliar till we are ashamed of our interest in it : 
he expands the little till it looks big. "If he 
were to write a fable of little fishes/' as Gold- 
smith said of him, " he would make them speak 
like great whales. " We can no more distin- 
guish the most familiar objects in his descrip- 
tions of them, than we can a well-known face 
under a huge painted mask. The structure of 
his sentences, which was his own invention, and 
which has been generally imitated since his 
time, is a species of rhyming in prose, where 
one clause answers to another in measure and 
quantity, like the tagging of syllables at the 
end of a verse ; the close of the period follows 
as mechanically as the oscillation of a pendulum, 
the sense is balanced with the sound; each 
sentence, revolving round its centre of gravity, is 
contained within itself like a couplet, and each 
paragraph forms itself into a stanza. Dr John- 
son is also a complete balance-master in the 
topics of morality. He never encourages hope, 



206 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

but he counteracts it by fear ; he never elicits a 
truth, but he suggests some objection in answer 
to it. He seizes and alternately quits the clue 
of reason, lest it should involve him in the 
labyrinths of endless error : he wants confidence 
in himself and his fellows. He dares not trust 
himself with the immediate impressions of 
things, for fear of compromising his dignity; or 
follow them into their consequences, for fear of 
committing his prejudices. His timidity is the 
result, not of ignorance, but of morbid appre- 
hension. "He turns the great circle, and is 
still at home." No advance is made by his 
writings in any sentiment, or mode of reasoning. 
Out of the pale of established authority and re- 
ceived dogmas, all is sceptical, loose, and de- 
sultory : he seems in imagination to strengthen 
the dominion of prejudice, as he weakens and 
dissipates that of reason ; and round the rock of 
faith and power, on the edge of which he slum- 
bers blindfold and uneasy, the waves and billows 
of uncertain and dangerous opinion roar and 
heave for evermore. His 6 Rasselas' is the most 
melancholy and debilitating moral speculation 
that ever was put forth. Doubtful of the facul- 
ties of his mind, as of his organs of vision, 
Johnson trusted only to his feelings and his 
fears. He cultivated a belief in witches as an 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 207 

out-guard to the evidences of religion ; and 
abused Milton, and patronised Lauder, in spite 
of his aversion to his countrymen, as a step to 
secure the existing establishment in church and 
state. This was neither right feeling nor sound 
logic. 

The most triumphant record of the talents and 
character of Johnson is to be found in BoswelPs 
life of him. The man was superior to the 
author. When he threw aside his pen, which 
he regarded as an encumbrance, he became 
not only learned and thoughtful, but acute, 
witty, humorous, natural, honest; hearty and 
determined, " the king of good fellows and wale 
of old men." There are as many smart repar- 
tees, profound remarks, and keen invectives to 
be found in BoswelFs " inventory of all he said/' 
as are recorded of any celebrated man. The life 
and dramatic play of his conversation forms a 
contrast to his written works. His natural 
powers and undisguised opinions were called 
out in convivial intercourse. In public, he 
practised with the foils : in private, he un- 
sheathed the sword of controversy, and it was 
" the Ebro's temper." The eagerness of op- 
position roused him from his natural sluggish- 
ness and acquired timidity ; he returned blow 
for blow ; and whether the trial were of argu- 



208 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

ment or wit, none of his rivals could boast much 
of the encounter. Burke seems to have been 
the only person who had a chance with him ; 
and it is the unpardonable sin of Boswell's work, 
that he has purposely omitted their combats of 
strength and skill. Goldsmith asked, " Does 
he wind into a subject like a serpent, as Burke 
does ?" And when exhausted with sickness, he 
himself said, " If that fellow Burke were here 
now, he would kill me." It is to be observed, 
that Johnson's colloquial style was as blunt, 
direct, and downright, as his style of studied 
composition was involved and circuitous. As 
when Topham, Beauclerc, and Langt on knocked 
him up at his chambers at three in the morning, 
and he came to the door with the poker in his 
hand, but seeing them, exclaimed, st What ! is 
it you, my lads ? then I'll have a frisk with 
you ! " and he afterwards reproaches Langton, 
who was a literary milksop, for leaving them to 
go to an engagement "with some wi-idead 
girls." What words to come from the mouth 
of the great moralist and lexicographer ! His 
good deeds were as many as his good sayings. 
His domestic habits, his tenderness to servants, 
and readiness to oblige his friends ; the quantity 
of strong tea that he drank to keep down sad 
thoughts ; his many labours reluctantly begun, 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 209 

and irresolutely laid aside ; his honest acknow- 
ledgment of his own, and indulgence to the 
weaknesses of others ; his throwing himself 
back in the post-chaise with Boswell, and say- 
ing, " Now I think I am a good-humoured 
fellow,'' though nobody thought him so, and yet 
he was ; his quitting the society of Garrick and 
his actresses, and his reason for it ; his dining 
with Wilkes, and his kindness to Goldsmith ; 
his sitting with the young ladies on his knee at 
the Mitre, to give them good advice, in which 
situation, if not explained, he might be taken 
for Falstaff ; and last and noblest, his carrying 
the unfortunate victim of disease and dissipation 
on his back up through Fleet street (an act 
which realises the parable of the good Samari- 
tan) — all these, and innumerable others, endear 
him to the reader, and must be remembered to 
his lasting honour. He had faults, but they 
lie buried with him. He had his prejudices 
and his intolerant feelings, but he suffered 
enough in the conflict of his own mind with 
them ; for if no man can be happy in the free 
exercise of his reason, no wise man can be happy 
without it. His were not time-serving, heart- 
less, hypocritical prejudices \ but deep, inwoven, 
not to be rooted out but with life and hope, 
which he found from old habit necessary to his 

p 



210 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

own peace of mind, and thought so to the peace 
of mankind. I do not hate, but love him for 
them. They were between himself and his 
conscience, and should be left to that higher 
tribunal 

" Where they in trembling hope repose, 
The bosom of his father and his God." 

In a word, he has left behind him few wiser 
or better men. 

The herd of his imitators showed what he 
was by their disproportionate effects. The 
Periodical Essayists that succeeded the ( Ram- 
bler' are, and deserve to be, little read at 
present. ' The Adventurer,' by Hawksworth, 
is completely trite and vapid, aping all the faults 
of Johnson's style, without anything to atone 
for them. The sentences are often absolutely 
unmeaning ; and one-half of each might regu- 
larly be left blank. 'The World,' and < Con- 
noisseur,' which followed, are a little better; 
and in the last of these there is one good idea, 
that of a man in indifferent health who judges 
of every one's title to respect from their posses- 
sion of this blessing, and bows to a sturdy beg- 
gar with sound limbs and a florid complexion, 
while he turns his back upon a lord who is a 
valetudinarian. 

Goldsmith's ' Citizen of the World/ like all 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 211 



his works, bears the stamp of the author's 
mind. It does not H go about to cozen reputa- 
tion without the stamp of merit." He is more 
observing, more original, more natural and pic- 
turesque than Johnson. His work is written on 
the model of the ' Persian Letters/ and contrives 
to give an abstracted and somewhat perplexing 
view of things, by opposing foreign preposses- 
sions to our own, and thus stripping objects of 
their customary disguises. Whether truth is 
elicited in this collision of contrary absurdities, 
I do not know ; but I confess the process is too 
ambiguous and full of intricacy to be very amus- 
ing to my plain understanding. For light sum- 
mer reading it is like walking in a garden full 
of traps and pitfalls. It necessarily gives rise to 
paradoxes, and there are some very bold ones in 
the 'Essays/ which would subject an author 
less established to no very agreeable sort of 
censura literaria. Thus the Chinese philosopher 
exclaims very unadvisedly, "The bonzes and 
priests of all religions keep up superstition and 
imposture ; all reformations begin with the laity." 
Goldsmith, however, was staunch in his prac- 
tical creed, and might bolt speculative extrava- 
gances with impunity. There is a striking 
difference in this respect between him and 
Addison, who, if he attacked authority, took 



212 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

care to have common sense on his side, and 
never hazarded anything offensive to the feelings 
of others, or on the strength of his own discre- 
tional opinion. There is another inconvenience 
in this assumption of an exotic character and 
tone of sentiment, that it produces an inconsis- 
tency between the knowledge which the indivi- 
dual has time to acquire and which the author is 
bound to communicate. Thus the Chinese has 
not been in England three days before he is 
acquainted with the characters of the three 
countries which compose this kingdom, and 
describes them to his friend at Canton by ex- 
tracts from the newspapers of each metropolis. 
The nationality of Scotchmen is thus ridi- 
culed : — 

Edinburgh. — We are positive when we say that San- 
ders Macgregor, lately executed for horse-stealing, is not 
a native of Scotland, but born at Carrickfergus. 

Now this is very good; but how should our 
Chinese philosopher find it out by instinct ? 
Beau Tibbs, a prominent character in this little 
work, is the best comic sketeh since the time of 
Addison ; unrivalled in his finery, his vanity, 
and his poverty. 

I have only to mention the names of the 
- Lounger ' and the 6 Mirror/ which are ranked 
by the author's admirers with Sterne for senti- 



ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 213 



ment, and with Addison for humour. I shall 
not enter into that ; but I know that the story 
of 6 La Roche' is not like the story of ' Le Fevre/ 
nor one hundredth part so good. Do I say this 
from prejudice to the author? No ; for I have 
read his novels. Of 6 The Man of the World 9 I 
cannot think so favourably as some others ; nor 
shall I here dwell on the picturesque and roman- 
tic beauties of 6 J ulia de Roubigne/ the early 
favourite of the author of 6 Rosamond Gray 
but of the 6 Man of Feeling ' I would speak with 
grateful recollections ; nor is it possible to for- 
get the sensitive, irresolute, interesting Harley ; 
and that lone figure of Miss Walton in it, that 
floats in the horizon, dim and ethereal, the day- 
dream of her lover's youthful fancy — better, far 
better, than all the realities of life ! 



LECTURE VI. 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

There is an exclamation in one of Gray's letters 
— u Be mine to read eternal new romances of 
Marivaux and Crebillon !" If I did not utter 
a similar aspiration at the conclusion of the last 
new novel which I read (I would not give offence 
by being more particular as to the name) it was 
not from any want of affection for the class of 
writing to which it belongs ; for without going 
so far as the celebrated French philosopher, who 
thought that more was to be learnt from good 
novels and romances than from the gravest 
treatises on history and morality, yet there are 
few works to which I am oftener tempted to 
turn for profit or delight, than to the standard 
productions in this species of composition. We 
find there a close imitation of men and man- 
ners ; we see the very web and texture of society 
as it really exists, and as we meet with it when 
we come into the world. If poetry has " some- 
thing more divine in it," this savours more of 
humanity. We are brought acquainted with 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 215 



the motives and characters of mankind, im- 
bibe our notions of virtue and vice from prac- 
tical examples, and are taught a knowledge of 
the world through the airy medium of romance. 
As a record of past manners and opinions, too, 
such writings afford the best and fullest informa- 
tion. For example, I should be at a loss where 
to find in any authentic documents of the same 
period so satisfactory an account of the general 
state of society, and of moral, political, and 
religious feeling in the reign of George II as 
we meet with in the Adventures of Joseph 
Andrews and his friend Mr Abraham Adams. 
This work, indeed, I take to be a perfect piece 
of statistics in its kind. In looking into any 
regular history of that period, into a learned and 
eloquent charge to a grand jury or the clergy 
of a diocese, or into a tract on controversial 
divinity, we should hear only of the ascendancy 
of the Protestant succession, the horrors of 
Popery, the triumph of civil and religious 
liberty, the wisdom and moderation of the 
sovereign, the happiness of the subject, and 
the flourishing state of manufactures and com- 
merce. But if we really wish to know what 
all these fine* sounding names come to, we 
cannot do better than turn to the works of those 
who, having no other object than to imitate na- 



216 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

ture, could only hope for success from the 
fidelity of their pictures ; and were bound (in 
self-defence) to reduce the boasts of vague 
theorists and the exaggerations of angry dispu- 
tants to the mortifying standard of reality. 
Extremes are said to meet ; and the works of 
imagination, as they are called, sometimes come 
the nearest to truth and nature. Fielding, in 
speaking on this subject, and vindicating the use 
and dignity of the style of writing in which he 
excelled against the loftier pretensions of pro- 
fessed historians, says, " that in their produc- 
tions nothing is true but the names and dates, 
whereas in his everything is true but the names 
and dates." If so, he has the advantage on his 
side. 

I will here confess, however, that I am a little 
prejudiced on the point in question ; and that 
the effect of many fine speculations has been 
lost upon me, from an early familiarity with 
the most striking passages in the work to which 
I have just alluded. Thus nothing can be more 
captivating than the description somewhere 
given by Mr Burke of the indissoluble con- 
nexion between learning and nobility, and of 
the respect universally paid by wealth to piety 
and morals. But the effect of this ideal repre- 
sentation has always been spoiled by my recol- 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 217 



lection of Parson Adams sitting over his cup of 
ale in Sir Thomas Booby's kitchen. Echard 
6 On the Contempt of the Clergy ' is, in like 
manner, a very good book, and " worthy of all 
acceptation but somehow an unlucky impres- 
sion of the reality of Parson Trulliber involun- 
tarily checks the emotions of respect to which it 
might otherwise give rise > while, on the other 
hand, the lecture which Lady Booby reads to 
Lawyer Scout on the immediate expulsion of 
Joseph and Fanny from the parish, casts no very 
favourable light on the flattering accounts of 
our practical jurisprudence which are to be found 
in Blackstone or De Lolme. The most moral 
writers, after all, are those who do not pretend 
to inculcate any moral. The professed moralist 
almost unavoidably degenerates into the partisan 
of a system ; and the philosopher is too apt to 
warp the evidence to his own purpose. But 
the painter of manners gives the facts of human 
nature, and leaves us to draw the inference ; if 
we are not able to do this, or do it ill, at least it 
is our own fault. 

The first-rate writers in this class, of course, 
are few ; but those few we may reckon among 
the greatest ornaments and best benefactors of 
our kind. There is a certain set of them who, 
as it were, take their rank by the side of reality, 



218 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

and are appealed to as evidence on all questions 
concerning human nature. The principal of 
these are Cervantes and Le Sage, who may be 
considered as having been naturalised among 
ourselves ; and, of native English growth, 
Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, and Sterne.* 
As this is a department of criticism which de- 
serves more attention than has been usually 
bestowed upon it, I shall here venture to recur 
(not from choice but necessity) to what I have 
said upon it in a well-known periodical publica- 
tion ;f and endeavour to contribute my mite 
towards settling the standard of excellence, both 
as to degree and kind, in these several writers. 

I shall begin with the history of the renowned 
'Don Quixote de la Mancha/ who presents 
something more stately, more romantic, and 
at the same time more real to the imagina- 
tion, than any other hero upon record. His 
lineaments, his accoutrements, his pasteboard 
vizor, are familiar to us; and Mambrino's 
helmet still glitters in the sun ! We not only 
feel the greatest love and veneration for the 

* It is not to be^forgotten that the author of 4 Robinson 
Crusoe* was also an Englishman. His other works, such 
as the * Life of Colonel Jack,' &c, are of the same cast, 
and leave an impression on the mind more like that of 
things than words. 

t The ' Edinburgh Review.' 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 219 



knight himself, but a certain respect for all 
those connected with him, the curate and Master 
Nicolas the barber, Sancho and Dapple, and 
even for Rosinante's leanness and his errors. — 
Perhaps there is no work which combines so 
much whimsical invention with such an air of 
truth. Its popularity is almost unequalled; 
and yet its merits have not been sufficiently 
understood. The story is the least part of 
them ; though the blunders of Sancho, and the 
unlucky adventures of his master, are what 
naturally catch the attention of the majority of 
readers. The pathos and dignity of the senti- 
ments are often disguised under the ludicrous- 
ness of the subject, and provoke laughter when 
they might well draw tears. The character of 
Don Quixote himself is one of the most perfect 
disinterestedness. He is an enthusiast of the 
most amiable kind ; of a nature equally open, 
gentle, and generous ; a lover of truth and jus- 
tice ; and one who had brooded over the fine 
dreams of chivalry and romance, till they had 
robbed him of himself, and cheated his brain 
into a belief of their reality. There cannot be a 
greater mistake than to consider ' Don Quixote' 
as a merely satirical work, or as a vulgar attempt 
to explode "the long-forgotten order of chi- 
valry." There could be no need to explode 



220 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

what no longer existed. Besides, Cervantes 
himself was a man of the most sanguine and en- 
thusiastic temperament ; and even through the 
crazed and battered figure of the knight, the 
spirit of chivalry shines out with undiminished 
lustre; as if the author had half-designed to 
revive the examples of past ages, and once more 
u witch the world with noble horsemanship." 
Oh ! if ever the mouldering flame of Spanish 
liberty is destined to break forth, wrapping the 
tyrant and the tyranny in one consuming blaze, 
that the spark of generous sentiment and ro- 
mantic enterprise, from which it must be kindled, 
has not been quite extinguished, will perhaps 
be owing to thee, Cervantes, and to thy 6 Don 
Quixote ! 9 

The character of Sancho is not more admi- 
rable in itself, than as a relief to that of the 
knight. The contrast is as picturesque and 
striking as that between the figures of Rosinante 
and Dapple. Never was there so complete a 
partie quarree : — they answer to one another at 
all points. Nothing need surpass the truth of 
physiognomy in the description of the master 
and man, both as to body and mind ; the one 
lean and tall, the other round and short ; the 
one heroical and courteous, the other selfish 
and servile ; the one full of high-flown fancies, 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 221 

the other a bag of proverbs ; the one always 
starting some romantic scheme, the other trying • 
to keep to the safe side of custom and tradition. 
The gradual ascendancy, however, obtained by 
Don Quixote over Sancho, is as finely managed 
as it is characteristic. Credulity and a love of 
the marvellous are as natural to ignorance as 
selfishness and cunning. Sancho by degrees 
becomes a kind of lay-brother of the order; 
acquires a taste for adventures in his own way, 
and is made all but an entire convert by the 
discovery of the hundred crowns in one of his 
most comfortless journeys. Towards the end, 
his regret at being forced to give up the pursuit 
of knight-errantry, almost equals his master's ; 
and he seizes the proposal of Don Quixote 
for them to turn shepherds with the greatest 
avidity — still applying it in his own fashion : 
for while the Don is ingeniously torturing the 
names of his humble acquaintance into classical 
terminations, and contriving scenes of gallantry 
and song, Sancho exclaims, " Oh, what delicate 
wooden spoons shall I carve ! what crumbs and 
cream shall I devour ! " — forgetting, in his milk 
and fruits, the pullets and geese at Camacho's 
wedding. 

This intuitive perception of the hidden ana- 
logies of things, or, as it may be called, this 



222 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

instinct of the imagination, is, perhaps, what 
. stamps the character of genius on the produc- 
tions of art more than any other circumstance : 
for it works unconsciously, like nature, and 
receives its impressions from a kind of inspira- 
tion. There is as much of this indistinct keep- 
ing and involuntary unity of purpose in Cer- 
vantes as in any author whatever. Something 
of the same unsettled, rambling humour extends 
itself to all the subordinate parts and characters 
of the work. Thus we find the curate confiden- 
tially informing Don Quixote, that if he could 
get the ear of the government, he has something 
of considerable importance to propose for the 
good of the state; and our adventurer after- 
wards (in the course of his peregrinations) meets 
with a young gentleman who is a candidate for 
poetical honours, with a mad lover, a forsaken 
damsel, a Mahometan lady converted to the 
Christian faith, &c. — all delineated with the 
same truth, wildness, and delicacy of fancy. 
The whole work breathes that air of romance, 
that aspiration after imaginary good, that in- 
describable longing after something more than 
we possess, that in all places and in all condi- 
tions of life, 

" still prompts the eternal sigh, 

For which we wish to live, or dare to die!" 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 223 



The leading characters in i Don Quixote' are 
strictly individuals ; that is, they do not so much 
belong to, as form a class by themselves. In 
other words, the actions and manners of the 
chief dramatis personce do not arise out of the 
actions and manners of those around them, or 
the situation of life in which they are placed* 
but out of the peculiar dispositions of the per- 
sons themselves, operated upon by certain im- 
pulses of caprice and accident. Yet these 
impulses are so true to nature, and their opera- 
tion so exaetly described, that we not only 
recognise the fidelity of the representation, but 
recognise it with all the advantages of novelty 
superadded. They are in the best sense originals, 
namely, in the sense in which nature has her 
originals. They are unlike anything we have 
seen before — may be said to be purely ideal ; 
and yet identify themselves more readily with 
our imagination, and are retained more strongly 
in memory, than perhaps any others : they are 
never lost in the crowd. One test of the truth 
of this ideal painting is the number of allusions 
which 6 Don Quixote 9 has furnished to the whole 
of civilised Europe ; that is to say, of appro- 
priate cases and striking illustrations of the uni- 
versal principles of our nature. The detached 
incidents and occasional descriptions of human 



224 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

life are more familiar and obvious ; so that we 
have nearly the same insight here given us into 
the characters of innkeepers, bar-maids, ostlers, 
and puppet-show men, that we have in Field- 
ing. There is a much greater mixture, how- 
ever, of the pathetic and sentimental with the 
quaint and humorous, than there ever is in 
Fielding. I might instance the story of the 
countryman whom Don Quixote and Sancho 
met in their doubtful search after Dulcinea, 
driving his mules to plough at break of day, 
and singing the ancient ballad of Ron- 
cesvalles ! " The episodes, which are frequently 
introduced, are excellent, but have, upon the 
whole, been overrated. They derive their inte- 
rest from their connexion with the main story. 
We are so pleased with that, that we are dis- 
posed to receive pleasure from everything else. 
Compared, for instance, with the serious tales in 
Boccaccio, they are slight and somewhat 
superficial. That of Marcella, the fair shep- 
herdess, is, I think, the best. I shall only add, 
that 'Don Quixote' was, at the time it was 
published, an entirely original work in its kind, 
and that the author claims the highest honour 
which can'belongto one, that of being the inventor 
of a new style of writing. I have never read his 
6 Galatea/ nor his i Loves of Persiles and Sigis- 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 225 



munda/ though I have often meant to do it, 
and I hope to do so yet. Perhaps there is a 
reason lurking at the bottom of this dilatoriness : 
I am quite sure the reading of these works 
could not make me think higher of the author 
of < Don Quixote/ and it might, for a moment 
or two, make me think less. 

There is another Spanish novel, ' Guzman 
d'Alfarache/ nearly of the same age as 6 Don 
Quixote/ and of great genius, though it can 
hardly be ranked as a novel or a work of 
imagination. It is a series of strange, uncon- 
nected adventures, rather drily told, but accom- 
panied by the most severe and sarcastic com- 
mentary. The satire, the wit, the eloquence, 
and reasoning, are of the most potent kind : but 
they are didactic rather than dramatic. They 
would suit a homily or a pasquinade as well or 
better than a romance. Still there are in this 
extraordinary book occasional sketches of cha- 
racter and humorous descriptions, to which it 
would be difficult to produce anything superior. 
This work, which is hardly known in this 
country except by name, has the credit, with- 
out any reason, of being the original of • Gil 
Bias.' There is one incident the same, that of 
the unsavoury ragout, which is served up for 
supper at the inn. In all other respects these 



226 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

two works are the very reverse of each other, 
both in their excellences and defects. — ( Laza- 
rillo de Tonnes' has been more read than the 
6 Spanish Rogue/ and is a work more readable, 
on this account among others, that it is con- 
tained in a duodecimo instead of a folio volume. 
This, however, is long enough, considering that 
it treats of only one subject, that of eating, or 
rather the possibility of living without eating. 
Famine is here framed into an art, and feasting 
is banished far hence. The hero's time and 
thoughts are taken up in a thousand shifts to 
procure a dinner ; and that failing, in tamper- 
ing with his stomach till supper time, when 
being forced to go supperless to bed, he com- 
forts himself with the hopes of a breakfast the 
next morning, of which being again disappoint- 
ed, he reserves his appetite for a luncheon, and 
then has to stave it off again by some meagre 
excuse or other till dinner ; and so on, by a 
perpetual adjournment of this necessary pro- 
cess, through the four-and-twenty hours round. 
The quantity of food proper to keep body and 
soul together is reduced to a minimum; and 
the most uninviting morsels with which Laza- 
rillo meets once a week as a God's-send, are 
pampered into the most sumptuous fare by a 
long course of inanition. The scene of this 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 227 

novel could be laid nowhere so properly as in 
Spain, that land of priestcraft and poverty, 
where hunger seems to be the ruling passion, 
and starving the order of the day. 

6 Gil Bias ' has, next to 'Don Quixote/ been 
more generally read and admired than any 
other novel ; and in one sense deservedly so : 
for it is at the head of its class, though that 
class is very different from, and I should say 
inferior to the other. There is little individual 
character in ' Gil Bias/ The author is a de- 
scriber of manners, and not of character. He 
does not take the elements of human nature, 
and work them up into new combinations 
(which is the excellence of 'Don Quixote') ; 
nor trace the peculiar and shifting shades of 
folly and knavery as they are to be found in real 
life (like Fielding) : but he takes off, as it were, 
the general, habitual impression which circum- 
stances make on certain conditions of life, and 
moulds all his characters accordingly. All the 
persons whom he introduces carry about with 
them the badge of their profession, and you see 
little more of them than their costume. He 
describes men as belonging to distinct classes in 
society ; not as they are in themselves, or with 
the individual differences which are always to 
be discovered in nature. His hero, in parti- 



( 



228 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

cular, has no character but that of the successive 
circumstances in which he is placed. His 
priests are only described as priests : his valets, 
his players, his women, his courtiers and his 
sharpers, are all alike. Nothing can well 
exceed the monotony of the work in this re- 
spect : — at the same time that nothing can exceed 
the truth and precision with which the general 
manners of these different characters are pre- 
served, nor the felicity of the particular traits 
by which their common foibles are brought out. 
Thus the Archbishop of Grenada will remain 
an everlasting memento of the weakness of 
human vanity; and the account of Gil Bias' 
legacy, of the uncertainty of human expectations. 
This novel is also deficient in the fable as well 
as in the characters. It is not a regularly 
constructed story ; but a series of amusing ad- 
ventures told with equal gaiety and good sense, 
and in the most graceful style imaginable. 

It has been usual to class our own great 
novelists as imitators of one or other of these 
two writers. Fielding, no doubt, is more like 
6 Don Quixote ' than 6 Gil Bias ; * Smollett is 
more like 'Gil Bias' than 'Don Quixote;' 
but there is not much resemblance in either case. 
Sterne's ' Tristram Shandy ' is a more direct 
instance of imitation. Richardson can scarcely 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 229 



be called an imitator of any one; or if he is, it 
is of the sentimental refinement of Marivaux, or 
of the verbose gallantry of the writers of the 
seventeenth century. 

There is very little to warrant the common 
idea that Fielding was an imitator of Cervantes, 
except his own declaration of such an intention 
in the title-page of * Joseph Andrews, ■ the ro- 
mantic turn of the character of Parson Adams 
(the only romantic character in his works), and 
the proverbial humour of Partridge, which is 
kept up only for a few pages. Fielding's novels 
are, in general, thoroughly his own; and they 
are thoroughly English. What they are most 
remarkable for, is neither sentiment, nor imagi- 
nation, nor wit, nor even humour, though there 
is an immense deal of this last quality; but 
profound knowledge of human nature, at least 
of English nature, and masterly pictures of the 
characters of men as he saw them existing. 
This quality distinguishes all his works, and is 
shown almost equally in all of them. As a 
painter of real life, he was equal to Hogarth ; 
as a mere observer of human nature, he was 
little inferior to Shakspeare, though without 
any of th?g&ius and poetical qualities of his 
mind. His humour is less rich and laughable 
than Smollett's ; his wit as often misses as hits ; 



230 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

he has none of the fine pathos of Richardson or 
Sterne ; but he has brought together a greater 
variety of characters in common life, marked 
with more distinct peculiarities, and without an 
atom of caricature, than any other novel writer 
whatever. The extreme subtlety of observation 
on the springs of human conduct in ordinary 
characters, is only equalled by the ingenuity of 
contrivance in bringing those springs into play, 
in such a manner as to lay open their smallest 
irregularity. The detection is always complete, 
and made with the certainty and skill of a 
philosophical experiment, and the obviousness 
and familiarity of a casual observation. The 
truth of the imitation is indeed so great, that it 
has been argued that Fielding must have had 
his materials ready-made to his hands, and was 
merely a transcriber of local manners and indi- 
vidual habits. For this conjecture, however, 
there seems to be no foundation. His repre- 
sentations, it is true, are local and individual ; 
but they are not the less profound and con- 
clusive. The feeling of the general principles 
of human nature operating in particular circum- 
stances, is always intense, and uppermost in his 
mind ; and he makes use of incident and situ- 
ation only to bring out character. 

It is scarcely necessary to give any illustra- 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 



231 



tions. 6 Tom Jones' is full of them. There is 
the account, for example, of the gratitude of the 
elder Blifil to his brother, for assisting him to 
obtain the fortune of Miss Bridget Alworthy 
by marriage ; and of the gratitude of the poor 
in his neighbourhood to Alworthy himself, 
who had done so much good in the country 
that he had made every one in it his enemy. 
There is the account of the Latin dialogues be- 
tween Partridge and his maid, of the assault 
made on him during one of these by Mrs Par- 
tridge, and the severe bruises he patiently re- 
ceived on that occasion, after which the parish 
of Little Baddington rung with the story, that 
the schoolmaster had killed his wife. There is 
the exquisite keeping in the character of Blifil, 
and the want of it in that of Jones. There is 
the gradation in the lovers of Molly Seagrim, 
the philosopher Square succeeding to Tom 
Jones, who again finds that he himself had 
succeeded to the accomplished Will Barnes 
who had the first possession of her person, and 
had still possession of her heart, Jones being 
only the instrument of her vanity, as Square 
was of her interest. Then there is the discreet 
honesty of Black George, the learning of 
Thwackum and Square, and the profundity of 
Squire Western, who considered it as a physical 



232 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

impossibility that his daughter should fall in 
love with Tom Jones. We have also that gen- 
tleman's disputes with his sister, and the inimi- 
table appeal of that lady to her niece : a I was 
never so handsome as you, Sophy ; yet I had 
something of you formerly. I was called the 
cruel Parthenissa. Kingdoms and states, as 
Tully Cicero says, undergo alteration, and so 
must the human form ! " The adventure of the 
same lady with the highwayman, who robbed 
her of her jewels while he complimented her 
beauty, ought not to be passed over ; nor that 
of Sophia and her muff, nor the reserved co- 
quetry of her cousin Fitzpatrick, nor the descrip- 
tion of Lady Bellaston, nor the modest over- 
tures of the pretty widow Hunt, nor the indis- 
creet babblings of Mrs Honour. The moral of 
this book has been objected to without much 
reason ; but a more serious objection has been 
made to the want of refinement and elegance in 
two principal characters. We never feel this 
objection, indeed, while we are reading the book; 
but at other times we have something like a 
lurking suspicion that Jones was but an awk- 
ward fellow, and Sophia a pretty simpleton. I 
do not know how to account for this effect, 
unless it is that Fielding's constantly assuring 
us of the beauty of his hero, and the good sense 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 233 



of his heroine, at last produces a distrust of 
both. The story of 6 Tom J ones 9 is allowed to be 
unrivalled ; and it is this circumstance, together 
with the vast variety of characters, that has 
given the 6 History of a Foundling ' so decided a 
preference over Fielding's other novels. The 
characters themselves, both in 'Amelia* and ' Jo- 
seph Andrews/ are quite equal to any of those 
in 6 Tom Jones/ The account of Miss Matthews 
and Ensign Hibbert in the former of these, — 
the way in which that lady reconciles herself to 
the death of her father, — the inflexible Colonel 
Bath, the insipid Mrs James, the complaisant 
Colonel Trent, the demure, sly, intriguing, 
equivocal Mrs Bennet, the lord who is her 
seducer, and who attempts afterwards to seduce 
Amelia by the same mechanical process of a 
concert-ticket, a book, and the disguise of a 
great coat, — his little, fat, short-nosed, red- 
faced, good-humoured accomplice, the keeper 
of the lodging-house, who, having no preten- 
sions to gallantry herself, has a disinterested 
delight in forwarding the intrigues and plea- 
sures of others, (to say nothing of honest Atkin- 
son, the story of the miniature-picture of Ame- 
lia, and the hashed mutton, which are in a dif- 
ferent style,) are master-pieces of description. 
The whole scene at the lodging-house, the 



234 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

masquerade, &c, in 6 Amelia/ are equal in inte- 
rest to the parallel scenes in 6 Tom Jones/ and 
even more refined in the knowledge of charac- 
ter. For instance, Mrs Bennet is superior to 
Mrs Fitzpatrick in her own way. The uncer- 
tainty in which the event of her interview with 
her former seducer is left, is admirable. Field- 
ing was a master of what may be called the 
double entendre of character, and surprises you 
no less by what he leaves in the dark (hardly 
known to the persons themselves) than by the 
unexpected discoveries he makes of the real 
traits and circumstances in a character with 
which, till then, you find you were unac- 
quainted. There is nothing at all heroic, how- 
ever, in the usual style of his delineations. He 
does not draw lofty characters or strong pas- 
sions ; all his persons are of the ordinary stature 
as to intellect, and possess little elevation of 
fancy, or energy of purpose. Perhaps, after 
all, Parson Adams is his finest character. It 
is equally true to nature and more ideal than 
any of the others. Its unsuspecting simplicity 
makes it not only more amiable, but doubly 
amusing, by gratifying the sense of superior 
sagacity in the reader. Our laughing at him 
does not once lessen our respect for him. His 
declaring that he would willingly walk ten 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 235 



miles to fetcli his sermon on vanity, merely to 
convince Wilson of his thorough contempt of 
this vice, and his consoling himself for the loss 
of his iEschylus by suddenly recollecting that 
he could not read it if he had it, because it is 
dark, are among the finest touches of naivete. 
The night adventures at Lady Booby's with 
Beau Didapper and the amiable Slipslop are the 
most ludicrous ; and that with the huntsman, 
who draws off the hounds from the poor parson 
because they would be spoiled by following ver- 
min, the most profound. Fielding did not often 
repeat himself, but Dr Harrison, in 6 Amelia/ 
may be considered as a variation of the charac- 
ter of Adams \ so also is Goldsmith's 6 Vicar of 
Wakefield f and the latter part of that work, 
which sets out so delightfully, an almost entire 
plagiarism from Wilson's account of himself, 
and Adams's domestic history. 

Smollett's first novel, 'Roderick Random/ 
which is also his best, appeared about the same 
time as Fielding's Tom Jones/ and yet it has 
a much more modern air with it ; but this may 
be accounted for from the circumstance that 
Smollett was quite a young man at the time, 
whereas Fielding's manner must have been 
formed long before. The style of 6 Roderick 
Random' is more easy and flowing than that of 



236 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

6 Tom Jones the incidents follow one another 
more rapidly (though, it must be confessed, 
they never come in such a throng, or are 
brought out with the same dramatic effect) ; the 
humour is broader, and as effectual ; and there 
is very nearly, if not quite, an equal interest 
excited by the story. What, then, is it that 
gives the superiority to Fielding ? It is the 
superior insight into the springs of human cha- 
racter, and the constant developement of that 
character through every change of circum- 
stance. Smollett's humour often arises from 
the situation of the persons, or the peculiarity 
of their external appearance 5 as, from Roderick 
Random's carrotty locks, which hung down 
over his shoulders like a pound of candles, or 
Strap's ignorance of London, and the blunders 
that follow from it. There is a tone of 
vulgarity about all his productions. The in- 
cidents frequently resemble detached anecdotes 
taken from a newspaper or magazine ; and, like 
those in c Gil Bias,' might happen to a hundred 
other characters. He exhibits the ridiculous 
accidents and reverses to which human life is 
liable, not "the stuff" of which it is composed. 
He seldom probes to the quick, or penetrates 
beyond the surface ; and, therefore, he leaves 
no stings in the minds of his readers, and in 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 237 



this respect is far less interesting than Fielding. 
His novels always enliven, and never tire us ; 
we take them up with pleasure, and lay them 
down without any strong feeling of regret. 
We look on and laugh, as spectators of a highly 
amusing scene, without closing in with the com- 
batants, or being made parties in the event. 
We read 6 Roderick Random' as an entertain- 
ing story, for the particular accidents and 
modes of life which it describes have ceased to 
exist ; but we regard e Tom Jones ' as a real 
history, because the author never stops short 
of those essential principles which lie at the 
bottom of all our actions, and in which we feel 
an immediate interest — intus et in cute. 
Smollett excels most as the lively caricaturist : 
Fielding as the exact painter and profound 
metaphysician. T am far from maintaining 
that this account applies uniformly to the pro- 
ductions of these two writers ; but I think that, 
as far as they essentially differ, what I have 
stated is the general distinction between them. 
6 Roderick Random ' is the purest of Smollett's 
novels : I mean in point of style and descrip- 
tion. Most of the incidents and characters are 
supposed to have been taken from the events 
of his own life ; and are, therefore, truer to 
nature. There is a rude conception of gene- 



238 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

rosity in some of his characters, of which 
Fielding seems to have been incapable, his 
amiable persons being merely good-natured. 
It is owing to this that Strap is superior to 
Partridge ; as there is a heartiness and warmth 
of feeling in some of the scenes between Lieute- 
nant Bowling and his nephew, which is beyond 
Fielding's power of impassioned writing. The 
whole of the scene on ship-board is a most 
admirable and striking picture, and, I imagine, 
very little if at all exaggerated, though the in- 
terest it excites is of a very unpleasant kind, 
because the irritation and resistance to petty 
oppression can be of no avail. The picture of 
the little profligate French friar, who was 
Roderick's travelling companion, and of whom 
he always kept to the windward, is one of 
Smollett's most masterly sketches. — 6 Peregrine 
Pickle' is no great favourite of mine, and 
? Launcelot Greaves' was not worthy of the 
genius of the author. 

6 Humphry Clinker' and 6 Count Fathom' 
are both equally admirable in their way. Per* 
haps the former is the most pleasant gossiping 
novel that was ever written ; that which gives 
the most pleasure with the least effort to the 
reader. It is quite as amusing as going the 
journey could have been ; and we have just as 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 239 



good an idea of what happened on the road as 
if we had been of the party. Humphry Clinker 
himself is exquisite ; and his sweetheart, Wini- 
fred Jenkins, not much behind him. Matthew 
Bramble, though not altogether original, is 
excellently supported, and seems to have been 
the prototype of Sir Anthony Absolute in the 
< Rivals/ But Lismahago is the flower of the 
flock. His tenaciousness in argument is not 
so delightful as the relaxation of his logical 
severity, when he finds his fortune mellowing 
in the wintry smiles of Mrs Tabitha Bramble. 
This is the best preserved, and most severe of 
all Smollett's characters. The resemblance to 
' Don Quixote' is only just enough to make it 
interesting to the critical reader, without giving 
offence to anybody else. The indecency and 
filth in this novel, are what must be allowed to 
all Smollett's writings. — The subject and cha- 
racters in 6 Count Fathom ' are, in general, ex- 
ceedingly disgusting : the story is also spun 
out to a degree of tediousness in the serious and 
sentimental parts ; but there is more power 
of writing occasionally shown in it than in any 
of his works. I need only refer to the fine and 
bitter irony of the Count's address to the coun- 
try of his ancestors on his landing in England ; 
to the robber scene in the forest, which has 



240 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

never been surpassed ; to the Parisian swindler 
who personates a raw English country squire 
(Western is tame in the comparison) ; and to 
the story of the seduction in the west of Eng- 
land. It would be difficult to point out, in any 
author, passages written with more force and 
mastery than these. 

It is not a very difficult undertaking to class 
Fielding or Smollett ; — the one as an observer 
of the characters of human life, the other as a 
describer of its various eccentricities. But it is 
by no means so easy to dispose of Richardson, 
who was neither an observer of the one nor a 
describer of the other, but who seemed to spin 
his materials entirely out of his own brain, as if 
there had been nothing existing in the world 
beyond the little room in which he sat writing. 
There is an artificial reality about his works 
which is nowhere else to be met with. They 
have the romantic air of a pure fiction, with the 
literal minuteness of a common diary. The 
author had the strongest matter-of-fact imagina- 
tion that ever existed, and wrote the oddest 
mixture of poetry and prose. He does not ap- 
pear to have taken advantage of anything in 
actual nature from one end of his works to the 
other; and yet, throughout all his works, volu- 
minous as they are (and this, to be sure, is one 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 241 



reason why they are so,) — he sets about describ- 
ing every object and transaction, as if the whole 
had been given in on evidence by an eye-wit- 
ness. This kind of high finishing from imagi- 
nation is an anomaly in the history of human 
genius ; and certainly nothing so fine was ever 
produced by the same accumulation of minute 
parts. There is not the least distraction, the 
least forgetfulness of the end — every circum- 
stance is made to tell. I cannot agree that this 
exactness of detail produces heaviness ; on the 
contrary, it gives an appearance of truth, and 
a positive interest to the story ; and we listen 
with the same attention as we should to the par- 
ticulars of a confidential communication. I at 
one time used to think some parts of Sir Charles 
Grandison rather trifling and tedious, especially 
the long description of Miss Harriet Byron's wed- 
ding-clothes, till I was told of two young ladies 
who had severally copied out the whole of that 
very description for their own private gratifica- 
tion. After that I could not blame the author. 

The effect of reading this work is like an in- 
crease of kindred. You find yourself all of a 
sudden introduced into the midst of a large 
family, with aunts and cousins to the third and 
fourth generation, and grandmothers both by 
the father's and mother's side ; and a very odd 

R 



242 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

set of people they are, but people whose real 
existence and personal identity you can no more 
dispute than your own senses, for you see and 
hear all that they do or say. What is still more 
extraordinary, all this extreme elaborateness in 
working out the story seems to have cost the 
author nothing ; for, it is said, that the pub- 
lished works are mere abridgments. I have 
heard (though this I suspect must be a pleasant 
exaggeration) that Sir Charles Grandison was 
originally written in eight- an d-twenty volumes. 

Pamela is the first of Richardson's produc- 
tions, and the very child of his brain. Taking 
the general idea of the character of a modest 
and beautiful country girl, and of the ordinary 
situation in which she is placed, he makes out 
all the rest, even to the smallest circumstance, 
by the mere force of a reasoning imagination. 
It would seem as if a step lost, would be as fatal 
here as in a mathematical demonstration, The 
development of the character is the most simple, 
and comes the nearest to nature that it can do, 
without being; the same thing. The interest of 
the story increases with the dawn of understand- 
ing and reflection in the heroine : her senti- 
ments gradually expand themselves, like opening 
flowers. She writes better every time, and 
acquires a confidence in herself, just as a girl 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 243 

would do, in writing such letters in such cir- 
cumstances; and yet it is certain that no girl 
would write such letters in such circumstances. 
What I mean is this :— Richardson's nature is 
always the nature of sentiment and reflection, not 
of impulse or situation. He furnishes his cha- 
racters, on every occasion, with the presence of 
mind of the author. He makes^ them act, not 
as they would from the impulse of the moment, 
but as they might upon reflection, and upon a 
careful review of every motive and circumstance 
in their situation. They regularly sit down to 
write letters : and if the business of life con- 
sisted in letter- writing, and was carried on by 
the post (like a Spanish game at chess), human 
nature would be w T hat Richardson represents it. 
All actual objects and feelings are blunted and 
deadened by being presented through a medium 
which may be true to reason, but is false in 
nature. He confounds his own point of view 
with that of the immediate actors in the scene ; 
and hence presents you with a conventional and 
factitious nature, instead of that which is real. 
Dr Johnson seems to have preferred this truth 
of reflection to the truth of nature, when he said 
that there was more knowledge of the human 
heart in a page of Richardson, than in all Field- 
ing. Fielding, however, saw more of the prac- 



244 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

tical results, and understood the principles as 
well ; but he had not the same power of specu- 
lating upon their possible results, and combining 
them in certain ideal forms of passion and imagi- 
nation, which was Richardson's real excellence. 

It must be observed, however, that it is this 
mutual good understanding and comparing of 
notes between the author and the persons he 
describes, his infinite circumspection, his exact 
process of ratiocination and calculation, which 
gives such an appearance of coldness and for- 
mality to most of his characters, — which makes 
prudes of his women and coxcombs of his men.- 
Every thing is too conscious in his works. 
Everything is distinctly brought home to the 
mind of the actors in the scene, which is a fault 
undoubtedly : but then, it must be confessed, 
everything is brought home in its full force to 
the mind of the reader also ; and we feel the 
same interest in the story as if it were our own. 
Can anything be more beautiful or more affect- 
ing than Pamela's reproaches to her " lumpish 
heart," when she is sent away from her master's 
at her own request; its lightness when she is 
sent for back ; the joy which the conviction of 
the sincerity of his love diffuses in her heart, 
like the coming on of spring ; the artifice of the 
stuff gown ; the meeting with Lady Davers after 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 245 

her marriage ; and the trial-scene with her hus- 
band? Who ever remained insensible to the 
passion of Lady Clementina, except Sir Charles 
Grandison himself, who was the object of it ? 
Clarissa ^is, however, his masterpiece, if we ex- 
cept Lovelace. If she is fine in herself, she is 
still finer in his account of her. With that foil, 
her purity is dazzling indeed : and she who could 
triumph by her virtue, and the force of her love, 
over the regality of Lovelace's mind, his wit, 
his person, his accomplishments, and his spirit, 
conquers all hearts. I should suppose that 
never sympathy more deep or sincere was ex- 
cited than by the heroine of Richardson's ro- 
mance, except by the calamities of real life. 
The links in this wonderful chain of interest are 
not more finely wrought, than their whole weight 
is overwhelming and irresistible. Who can 
forget the exquisite gradations of her long dying- 
scene, or the closing of the coffin-lid, when Miss 
Howe comes to take her last leave of her friend ; 
or the heart-breaking reflection that Clarissa 
makes on what was to have been her wedding- 
day? Well does a certain writer exclaim — 

" Books are a real world, both pure and good, 

Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 
Our pastime and our happiness may grow \ " 

Richardson's wit was unlike that of any other 



246 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

writer — his humour was so too. Both were the 
effect of intense activity of mind — laboured, and 
yet completely effectual. I might refer to Love- 
lace's reception and description of Hickman, 
when he calls out Death in his ear, as the name 
of the person with whom Clarissa had fallen in 
love ; and to the scene at the glove-shop. What 
can be more magnificent than his enumeration 
of his companions — " Belton, so pert and so 
pimply — Tourville, so fair and so foppish ! " 
&c. In casuistry this author is quite at home ; 
and, with a boldness greater even than his puri- 
tanical severity, has exhausted every topic on 
virtue and vice. There is another peculiarity 
in Richardson, not perhaps so uncommon, which 
is, his systematically preferring his most insipid 
characters to his finest, though both were equally 
his own invention, and he must be supposed 
to have understood something of their qualities. 
Thus he preferred the little, selfish, affected, in- 
significant Miss Byron, to the divine Clemen- 
tina ; and again, Sir Charles Grandison to the 
nobler Lovelace. I have nothing to say in 
favour of Lovelace's morality ; but Sir Charles 
is the prince of coxcombs, — whose eye was 
never once taken from his own person and his 
own virtues ; and there is nothing which excites 
so little sympathy as this excessive egotism. 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 247 

It remains to speak of Sterne ; and I shall do 
it in few words. There is more of mannerism 
and affectation in him, and a more immediate 
reference to preceding authors ; but his excel- 
lences, where he is excellent, are of the first 
order. His characters are intellectual and in- 
ventive, like Richardson's, but totally opposite 
in the execution. The one are made out by 
continuity, and patient repetition of touches ; the 
others, by glancing transitions and graceful ap- 
position. His style is equally different from 
Richardson's : it is at times the most rapid, the 
most happy, the most idiomatic of any that is 
to be found. It is the pure essence of English 
conversational style. His works consist only 
of morceaux — of brilliant passages. 1 wonder 
that Goldsmith, who ought to have known 
better, should call him a a dull fellow." His 
wit is poignant, though artificial ; and his cha- 
racters (though the groundwork of some of them 
had been laid before) have yet invaluable origi- 
nal differences ; and the spirit of the execution 
the master-strokes constantly thrown into them, 
are not to be surpassed. It is sufficient to name 
them:— Yorick, Dr Slop, Mr Shandy, « My 
Uncle Toby, Trim, Susanna, and the Widow 
Wadman. In these he has contrived to oppose, 
with equal felicity and originality, two charac- 



248 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

ters, one of pure intellect, and the other of pure 
good nature, in My Father and My Uncle Toby. 
There appears to have been in Sterne a vein of 
dry, sarcastic humour, and of extreme tender- 
ness of feeling ; the latter sometimes carried to 
affectation, as in the tale of Maria, and the apos- 
trophe to the recording angel ; but at other times 
pure, and without blemish. The story of Le 
Fevre is perhaps the finest in the English lan- 
guage. My Father's restlessness, both of body 
and mind, is inimitable. It 5s the model from 
which all those despicable performances against 
modern philosophy ought to have been copied , 
if their authors had known anything of the sub- 
ject they were writing about. My Uncle Toby 
is one of the finest compliments ever paid to 
human nature. He is the most unoffending of 
God's creatures ; or, as the French express it, 
un tel petit bo?i homme ! Of his bowling-green, 
his sieges, and his amours, who would say or 
think any thing amiss ! 

It is remarkable that our four best novel- 
writers belong nearly to the same age. We 
also owe to the same period (the reign of 
George II) the inimitable Hogarth, and some 
of our best writers of the middle style of co- 
medy. If I were called upon to account for 
this coincidence, I should waive the considera- 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 249 

tion of more general causes, and ascribe it at 
once to the establishment of the Protestant 
ascendancy, and the succession of the House of 
Hanover. These great events appear to have 
given a more popular turn to our literature and 
genius, as well as to our government. It was 
found high time that the people should be re- 
presented in books as well as in Parliament. 
They wished to see some account of themselves 
in what they read 5 and not to be confined al- 
ways to the vices, the miseries, and frivolities 
of the great. Our domestic tragedy, and our 
earliest periodical works, appeared a little be- 
fore the same period. In despotic countries, 
human nature is not of sufficient importance to 
be studied or described. The canaille are ob- 
jects rather of disgust than curiosity; and 
there are no middle classes. The works of 
Racine and Moliere are either imitations 
of the verbiage of the court, before which 
they were represented, or fanciful caricatures of 
the manners of the lowest of the people. But 
in the period of our history in question, a secu- 
rity of person and property, and a freedom of 
opinion had been established, which made 
every man feel of some consequence to himself, 
and appear an object of some curiosity to his 
neighbours : our manners became more domes- 
ticated 1 there was a general spirit of sturdiness 



250 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

and independence, which made the English 
character more truly English than perhaps at 
any other period — that is, more tenacious of its 
own opinions and purposes. The whole surface 
of society appeared cut out into square enclo- 
sures and sharp angles, which extended to the 
dresses of the time, their gravel-walks and 
clipped hedges. Each individual had a cer- 
tain ground-plot of his own to cultivate his 
particular humours in, and let them shoot out 
at pleasure; and a most plentiful crop they 
have produced accordingly. The reign of 
George II was, in a word, the age of hobby- 
horses : but, since that period, things have taken 
a different turn. 

His present Majesty (God save the mark !) 
during almost the whole of his reign, has been 
constantly mounted on a great war-horse ; and 
has fairly driven all competitors out of the field. 
Instead of minding our own affairs, or laughing 
at each other, the eyes of all his faithful subjects 
have been fixed on the career of the sovereign, 
and all hearts anxious for the safety of his per- 
son and government. Our pens and our swords 
have been alike drawn in their defence; and 
the returns of killed and wounded, the ma- 
nufacture of newspapers and parliamentary 
speeches, have exceeded all former example. 
If we have had a little of the blessings of peace, 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 251 

we have had enough of the glories and cala- 
mities of war. His Majesty has indeed con- 
trived to keep alive the greatest public interest 
ever known, by his determined manner of riding 
his hobby for half a century together, with 
the aristocracy, the democracy, the clergy, the 
landed and monied interest, and the rabble, 
in full cry after him ; — and at the end of 
his career, most happily and unexpectedly 
succeeded, amidst empires lost and won, king- 
doms overturned and created, and the destruc- 
tion of an incredible number of lives, in restoring 
the divine right of kings, and thus preventing 
any future abuse of the example which seated 
his family on the throne ! 

It is not to be wondered at, if amidst the 
tumults of events crowded into this period, our 
literature has partaken of the disorder of the 
time ; if our prose has run mad, and our 
poetry grown childish. Among those persons 
who " have kept the even tenor of their way," 
the author of 6 Evelina/ 6 Cecilia/ and i Ca- 
milla/ must be allowed to hold a distinguished 
place.* Mrs RadclinVs u enchantments drear/* 

* * The Fool of Quality,' < David Simple,' and ' Sydney 
Biddulph,' written about the middle of the last century, be- 
long to the ancient regime of novel-writing. Of the ' Vicar 
of Wakefield 1 I have attempted a character elsewhere. 



252 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

and mouldering castles, derived part of their 
interest, no doubt, from the supposed tottering 
state of all old structures at the time; and 
Mrs Inchbald's 6 Nature and Art' would 
scarcely have had the same popularity, but 
that it fell in (as to its two main characters) 
with the prevailing prejudice of the moment, 
that judges and bishops were not invariably 
pure abstractions of justice and piety. Miss 
Edgeworth's 6 Tales/ again, (with the excep- 
tion of 6 Castle Rack-rent/ which is a genuine, 
unsophisticated, national portrait) are a kind of 
pedantic, pragmatical, common sense, tinctured 
with the pertness and pretensions of the para- 
doxes to which they are so self-complacently 
opposed. Madame D'Arblay is, on the con- 
trary, quite of the old school, a mere com- 
mon observer of manners, and also a very 
woman. It is this last circumstance which 
forms the peculiarity of her writings, and 
distinguishes them from those masterpieces 
which I have before mentioned. She is a 
quick, lively, and accurate observer of persons 
and things; but she always looks at them 
with a consciousness of her sex, and in that 
point of view in which it is the particular busi- 
ness and interest of women to observe them. 
There is little in her works of passion or charac- 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 253 

ter, or even manners, in the most extended 
sense of the word, as implying the sum-total of 
our habits and pursuits ; her forte is in de- 
scribing the absurdities and affectations of ex- 
ternal behaviour, or the manners of people in 
company. Her characters, which are ingenious 
caricatures, are, no doubt, distinctly marked, and 
well kept up ; but they are slightly shaded, and 
exceedingly uniform. Her heroes and heroines, 
almost all of them, depend on the stock of a 
single phrase or sentiment, and have certain 
mottoes or devices by which they may always be 
known. They form such characters as people 
might be supposed to assume for a night at a 
masquerade. She presents not the whole-length 
figure, nor even the face, but some prominent 
feature. In one of her novels, for example, a 
lady appears regularly every ten pages, to get a 
lesson in music for nothing. She never appears 
for any other purpose; this is all you know of 
her ; and in this the whole wit and humour of 
the character consists. Meadows is the same, 
who has always the cue of being tired, without 
any other idea. It has been said of Shakspeare, 
that you may always assign his speeches to the 
proper characters ; and you may infallibly do 
the same thing with Madame D'Arblay's, for 
they always say the same thing. The Braugh- 



254 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

ton's are the best. Mr Smith is an exquisite 
city portrait. ' Evelina' is also her best novel, 
because it is the shortest ; that is, it has all the 
liveliness in the sketches of character, and smart- 
ness of comic dialogue and repartee, without the 
tediousness of the story, and endless affectation 
of sentiment which disfigures the others. 

Women, in general, have a quicker percep- 
tion of any oddity or singularity of character 
than men, and are more alive to every absurdity 
which arises from a violation of the rules of so- 
ciety, or a deviation from established custom. 
This partly arises from the restraints on their 
own behaviour, which turn their attention con- 
stantly on the subject, and partly from other 
causes. The surface of their minds, like that 
of their bodies, seems of a finer texture than 
ours ; more soft, and susceptible of immediate 
impulses. They have less muscular strength, 
less power of continued voluntary attention, 
of reason, passion, and imagination ; but they are 
more easily impressed with whatever appeals to 
their senses or habitual prejudices. The intui- 
tive perception of their minds is less disturbed 
by any abstruse reasonings on causes or conse- 
quences. They learn the idiom of character and 
manners, as they acquire that of language, by 
rote, without troubling themselves about the 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 255 



principles. Their observation is not the less 
accurate on that account, as far as it goes, for it 
has been well said that 66 there is nothing so true 
as habit." 

There is little other power in Madame D'Ar- 
blay's novels than that of immediate observation ; 
her characters, whether of refinement or vul- 
garity, are equally superficial and confined. The 
whole is a question of form, whether that form 
is adhered to or infringed upon. It is this cir- 
cumstance which takes away dignity and inter- 
est from her story and sentiments, and makes 
the one so teazing and tedious, and the other so 
insipid. The difficulties in which she involves 
her heroines are too much 6 Female Difficul- 
ties;' they are difficulties created out of 
nothing. The author appears to have no other 
idea of refinement than it is the reverse of vul- 
garity ; but the reverse of vulgarity is fastidi- 
ousness and affectation. There is a true and 
a false delicacy. Because a vulgar country 
Miss would answer "yes" to a proposal of 
marriage in the first page, Madame D'Arblay 
makes it a proof of an excess of refinement, and 
an indispensable point of etiquette in her young 
ladies to postpone the answer to the end of five 
volumes, without the smallest reason for their 
doing so, and with every reason to the contrary. 



256 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

The reader is led every moment to expect a 
denouement, and is as often disappointed on some 
trifling pretext. The whole artifice of her fable 
consists in coming to no conclusion. Her ladies 
" stand so upon the order of their going/' that 
they do not go at all. They will not abate an 
ace of their punctilio in any circumstances or 
on any emergency. They would consider it as 
quite indecorous to run down stairs though the 
house were in flames, or to move an inch off the 
pavement though a scaffolding was falling. She 
has formed to herself an abstract idea of perfec- 
tion in common behaviour, which is quite as 
romantic and impracticable as any other idea 
of the sort ; and the consequence has naturally 
been that she makes her heroines commit the 
greatest improprieties and absurdities in order 
to avoid the smallest. In opposition to a maxim 
in philosophy, they constantly act from the 
weakest motive, or rather from pure contradic- 
tion. The whole tissue of the fable is, in gene- 
ral, more wild and chimerical than anything in 
6 Don Quixote,' without the poetical truth or ele- 
vation. Madame D'Arblay has woven a web of 
difficulties for her heroines, something like the 
green silken threads in which the shepherdesses 
entangled the steed of Cervantes' hero, who 
swore, in his fine enthusiastic way, that he 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 257 

would sooner cut his passage to another world 
than disturb the least of those beautiful meshes. 
To mention the most painful instance — the 
6 Wanderer/ in her last novel, raises obstacles 
lighter than " the gossamer that idles in the 
wanton summer air/' into insurmountable bar- 
riers ; and trifles with those that arise out of 
common sense, reason, and necessity. Her 
conduct is not to be accounted for directly out 
of the circumstances in which she is placed, but 
out of some factitious and misplaced refinement 
on them. It is a perpetual game at cross-pur- 
poses. There being a plain and strong motive 
why she should pursue any course of action, is 
a sufficient reason for her to avoid it, and the 
perversity of her conduct is in proportion to its 
levity — as the lightness of the feather baffles the 
force of the impulse that is given to it, and the 
slightest breath of air turns it back on the hand 
from which it is thrown. We can hardly 
consider this as the perfection of the female 
character ! 

I must say I like Mrs RadclifFe's romances 
better, and think of them oftener; and even 
when I do not, part of the impression with 
which I survey the full-orbed moon shining in 
the blue expanse of heaven, or hear the wind 
sighing through autumnal leaves, or walk under 

s 



258 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

the echoing archways of a Gothic ruin, is owing 
to a repeated perusal of the 6 Romance of the 
Forest/ and the 6 Mysteries of Udolpho/ Her 
descriptions of scenery, indeed, are vague and 
wordy to the last degree ; they are neither 
like Salvator nor Claude, nor nature nor art ; 
and she dwells on the effects of moonlight till 
we are sometimes weary of them ; her charac- 
ters are insipid, the shadows of a shade, con- 
tinued on, under different names, through all 
her novels \ her story comes to nothing. But 
in harrowing up the soul with imaginary hor- 
rors, and making the flesh creep, and the nerves 
thrill with fond hopes and fears she is unrivalled 
among her fair country-women. Her great 
power lies in describing the indefinable, and 
embodying a phantom. She makes her readers 
twice children ; and from the dim and shadowy 
veil which she draws over the objects of her 
fancy, forces us to believe all that is strange, 
and next to impossible, of their mysterious 
agency ; whether it is the sound of the lover's 
lute borne o'er the distant waters along the 
winding shores of Provence, recalling with its 
magic breath, some long-lost friendship or some 
hopeless love ; or the full choir of the cloistered 
monks, chaunting their midnight orgies ; or the 
lonely voice of an unhappy sister in her pensive 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 259 



cell, like angels' whispered music ; or the deep 
sigh that steals from a dungeon on the startled 
ear ; or the dim apparition of ghastly features ; 
or the face of an assassin hid beneath a monk's 
cowl ; or the robber gliding through the twi- 
light gloom of the forest. All the fascination 
that links the world of passion to the world un- 
known is hers, and she plays with it at her 
pleasure; she has all the poetry of romance, ail 
that is obscure, visionary, and objectless in the 
imagination. It seems that the simple notes of 
Clara's lute, which so delighted her youthful 
heart, still echo among the rocks and mountains 
of the Valois ; the mellow tones of the minstrel's 
songs still mingle with the noise of the dashing 
oar, and the rippling of the silver waves of the 
Mediterranean; the voice of Agnes is heard 
from the haunted tower, and Schedoni's form 
still stalks through the frowning ruins of Palinzi. 
The greatest treat, however, which Mrs Rad- 
cliffe's pen has provided for the lovers of the 
marvellous and terrible is the Provencal tale 
which Ludovico reads in the Castle of Udolpho 
as the lights are beginning to burn blue, and just 
before the faces appear from behind the tapestry 
that carry him off, and we hear no more of him. 
This tale is of a knight, who being engaged in 
a dance at some high festival of old romance, 



260 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

was summoned out by another knight clad in 
complete steel ; and being solemnly adjured to 
follow him into the mazes of the neighbouring 
wood, his conductor brought him at length to a 
hollow glade in the thickest part, where he 
pointed to the murdered corse of another 
knight, and lifting up his beaver showed him 
by the gleam of moonlight which fell on it, 
that it had the face of his spectre-guide ! The 
dramatic power in the character of Schedoni, 
the Italian monk, has been much admired and 
praised; but the effect does not depend upon 
the character, but the situations ; not upon the 
figure, but upon the back-ground. The 6 Cas- 
tle of Otranto ' (which is supposed to have led 
the way to this style of writing) is, to my 
notion, dry, meagre, and without effect. It is 
done upon false principles of taste. The great 
hand and arm which are thrust into the court- 
yard, and remain there all day long, are the 
pasteboard machinery of a pantomime; they 
shock the senses, and have no purchase upon 
the imagination. They are a matter-of-fact 
impossibility ; a fixture, and no longer a phan- 
tom. Quod sic mihi ostendis, incredulus odi. 
By realising the chimeras of ignorance and 
fear, begot upon shadows and dim likenesses, 
we take away the very grounds of credulity 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 261 



and superstition; and, as in other cases, by- 
facing out the imposture betray the secret to 
the contempt and laughter of the spectators. 
The 6 Recess/ and the 'Old English Baron/ 
are also " dismal treatises/' but with little in 
them "at which our fell of hair is like to 
rouse and stir as life were in it." They are 
dull and prosing, without the spirit of fiction 
or the air of tradition to make them interesting. 
After Mrs Radcliffe, Monk Lewis was the 
greatest master of the art of freezing the blood. 
The robber- scene in the 6 Monk ' is only infe- 
rior to that in 6 Count Fathom/ and perfectly 
new in the circumstances and cast of the cha- 
racters. Some of his descriptions are chargeable 
with unpardonable grossness, but the pieces of 
poetry interspersed in this far-famed novel, such 
as the fight of Roncesvalles and the Exile, in 
particular, have a romantic and delightful har- 
mony, such as might be chaunted by the moon- 
light pilgrim, or might lull the dreaming mari- 
ner on summer seas. 

If Mrs Radcliffe touched the trembling 
chords of the imagination, making wild music 
there, Mrs Inchbald has no less power over the 
springs of the heart. She not only moves the 
affections but melts us into iC all the luxury of 
woe." Her ( Nature and Art ' is one of the 



262 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

most pathetic and interesting stories in the world. 
It is, indeed, too much so ; or the distress is too 
naked, and the situations hardly to be borne 
with patience. I think nothing, however, can 
exceed in delicacy and beauty the account of the 
love-letter which the poor girl, who is the sub- 
ject of the story, receives from her lover, and 
which she is a fortnight in spelling out, sooner 
than show it to any one else ; nor the dreadful 
catastrophe of the last fatal scene, in which the 
same poor creature, as her former seducer, now 
become her judge, is about to pronounce sen- 
tence of death upon her, cries out in agony — 
i( Oh, not from you !" The effect of this novel upon 
the feelings, is not only of the most distressing, 
but withering kind. It blights the sentiments, 
and haunts the memory. The 6 Simple Story 9 
is not much better in this respect : the gloom, 
however, which hangs over it is of a more fixed 
and tender kind : we are not now lifted to ecstasy, 
only to be plunged in madness ; and besides the 
sweetness and dignity of some of the characters, 
there are redeeming traits, retrospective glances 
on the course of human life, which brighten the 
backward stream, and smile in hope or patience 
to the last. Such is the account of Sandford, 
her stern and inflexible adviser, sitting by the 
bedside of Miss Milner, and comforting her in 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 263 

her dying moments ; thus softening the worst 
pang of human nature, and reconciling us to 
the best, but not most shining virtues in human 
character. The conclusion of ' Nature and Art/ 
on the contrary, is a scene of heartless desola- 
tion, which must effectually deter any one from 
ever reading the book twice. Mrs Inchbald is 
an instance to confute the assertion of Rousseau, 
that women fail whenever they attempt to de- 
scribe the passion of love. 

I shall conclude this Lecture, by saying a few 
words of the author of ' Caleb Williams/ and 
the author of 6 Waverley.' I shall speak of 
the last first. In knowledge, in variety, in fa- 
cility, in truth of painting, in costume and 
scenery, in freshness of subject, and in untired 
interest, in glancing lights and the graces of a 
style passing at will "from grave to gay, from 
lively to severe/' at once romantic and familiar, 
having the utmost force of imitation and appa- 
rent freedom of invention; these novels have 
the highest claims to admiration. What lack 
they yet ? The author has all power given him 
from without — he has not, perhaps, an equal 
power from within. The intensity of the feeling 
is not equal to the distinctness of the imagery. 
He sits like a magician in his cell, and conjures 
ap all shapes and sights to the view ; and with a 



264 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

little variation we might apply to him what 
Spenser says of Fancy : — 

" His chamber was dispainted all within 
With sundry colours, in the which were writ 
Infinite shapes of things dispersed thin ; 
Some such as in the world were never yet ; 
Some daily scene and knowen by their names, 
Such as in idle fantasies do flit; 
Infernal hags, centaurs, fiends, hippodames, 
Apes, lions, eagles, owls, fools, lovers, children, 
dames." 

In the midst of all this phantasmagoria, the 
author himself never appears to take part with 
his characters, to prompt our affection to the 
good, or sharpen our antipathy to the bad. It 
is the perfection of art to conceal art ; and this 
is here done so completely, that while it adds to 
our pleasure in the work, it seems to take 
away from the merit of the author. As he 
does not thrust himself forward in the fore- 
ground, he loses the credit of the performance. 
The copies are so true to nature, that they ap- 
pear like tapestry figures taken off by the pat- 
tern; the obvious patchwork of tradition and 
history. His characters are transplanted at 
once from their native soil to the page which we 
are reading, without any traces of their having 
passed through the hot-bed of the author's 
genius or vanity. He leaves them as he found 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 265 



them ; but this is doing wonders. The Laird 
and the Baillie of Bradwardine, the idiot 
rhymer, David Gellatly, Miss Rose Bradwar- 
dine, and Miss Flora Mac Ivor, her brother the 
Highland Jacobite chieftain, Vic Ian Vohr, the 
Highland rover, Donald Bean Lean, and the 
worthy page Callum Beg, Bothwell and Bal- 
four of Burley, Claverhouse and Macbriar, 
Elshie the Black Dwarf, and the Red Reever 
of Westburn Flat, Hobbie and Grace Armstrong, 
Ellengowan and Dominie Sampson, Dirk Hat- 
teraick and Meg Merrilies, are at present " fa- 
miliar in our mouths as household names," and 
whether they are actual persons or creations 
of the poet's pen, is an impertinent inquiry. 
The picturesque and local scenery is as fresh as 
the lichen on the rock: the characters are a 
part of the scenery. If they are put in action, 
it is a moving picture : if they speak, we hear 
their dialect and the tones of their voice. If the 
humour is made out by dialect, the character by 
the dress, the interest by the facts and docu- 
ments in the author's possession, we have no 
right to complain, if it is made out ; but some- 
times it hardly is, and then we have a right to 
say so. For instance, in the ' Tales of my 
Landlord/ Canny Elshie is not in himself so 
formidable or petrific a peron as the real Black 



266 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

Dwarf, called David Ritchie, nor are his acts 
or savings so staggering to the imagination. 
Again, the first introduction of this extraordi- 
nary personage, groping about among the 
hoary twilight ruins of the Witch of Mickle- 
stane Moor and her Grey Geese, is as full of 
preternatural power and bewildering effect (ac- 
cording to the tradition of the country) as can 
be; while the last decisive scene, where the 
Dwarf, in his resumed character of Sir Edward 
Mauley, comes from the tomb in the Chapel, 
to prevent the forced marriage of the daughter 
of his former betrothed mistress with the man 
she abhors, is altogether powerless and tame. 
No situation could be imagined more finely cal- 
culated to call forth an author's powers of ima- 
gination and passion ; but nothing is done. 
The assembly is dispersed under circumstances 
of the strongest natural feeling, and the most 
appalling preternatural appearances, just as if 
the effect had been produced by a peace-officer 
entering for the same purpose. These instances 
of a falling-off are, however, rare ; and if this 
author should not be supposed by fastidious 
critics to have original genius in the highest de- 
gree, he has other qualities which supply its 
place so well, his materials are so rich and 
varied, and he uses them so lavishly, that the 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 



267 



reader is no loser by the exchange. We are not 
in fear that he should publish another novel ; 
we are under no apprehension of his exhausting 
himself, for he has shown that he is inex- 
haustible. 

Whoever else is, it is pretty clear that the 
author of ' Caleb Williams ' and 6 St Leon* is 
not the author of 6 Waverley.' Nothing can be 
more distinct or excellent in their several ways 
than these two writers. If the one owes almost 
everything to external observation and tradi- 
tional character, the other owes everything to 
internal conception and contemplation of the 
possible workings of the human mind. There 
is little knowledge of the world, little variety, 
neither an eye for the picturesque, nor a talent 
for the humorous in < Caleb Williams' for 
instance, but you cannot doubt for a moment of 
the originality of the work and the force of the 
conception. The impression made upon the 
reader is the exact measure of the strength of 
the author's genius. For the effect, both in 
6 Caleb Williams' and < St Leon,' is entirely made 
out, neither by facts, nor dates, by black-letter 
or magazine learning, by transcript or record, 
but by intense and patient study of the human 
heart, and by an imagination projecting itself 
into certain situations, and capable of working 



268 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

up its imaginary feelings to the height of reality. 
The author launches into the ideal world, and 
must sustain himself and the reader there by the 
mere force of imagination. The sense of power 
in the writer thus adds to the interest of the 
subject. — The character of Falkland is a sort of 
apotheosis of the love of fame. The gay, the 
gallant Falkland lives only in the good opinion 
of good men ; for this he adorns his soul with 
virtue, and tarnishes it with crime ; he lives 
only for this, and dies as he loses it. He is 
a lover of virtue but a worshipper of fame. 
Stung to madness by a brutal insult, he avenges 
himself by a crime of the deepest die, and the 
remorse of his conscience and the stain upon his 
honour prey upon his peace and reason ever 
after. It was into the mouth of such a cha- 
racter that a modern poet has well put the words, 

* Action is momentary, 

The motion of a muscle, this way or that ; 
Suffering is long, obscure, and infinite.'* 

In the conflict of his feelings he is worn to a 
skeleton, wasted to a shadow. But he endures 
this living death to watch over his undying re- 
putation, and to preserve his name unsullied and 
free from suspicion. But he is at last disappoint- 
ed in this his darling object, by the very means 
he takes to secure it, and by harassing and goad- 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 269 



ing Caleb Williams (whose insatiable, incessant 
curiosity had wormed itself into his confidence) 
to a state of desperation, by employing every 
sort of persecution, and by trying to hunt him 
from society like an infection, makes him turn 
upon him, and betray the inmost secret of his 
soul. The last moments of Falkland are indeed 
sublime : the spark of life and the hope of im- 
perishable renown are extinguished in him to- 
gether ; and bending his last look of forgiveness 
on his victim and destroyer, he dies a martyr to 
fame, but a confessor at the shrine of virtue ! 
The re-action and play of these two characters 
into each other's hands (like Othello and lago) 
is inimitably well managed, and on a par with 
anything in the dramatic art ; but Falkland is 
the hero of the story, Caleb Williams is only 
the instrument of it. This novel is utterly un- 
like anything else that ever was written, and is 
one of the most original as well as powerful 
productions in the English language. 6 St Leon ' 
is not equal to it in the plot and ground- work, 
though perhaps superior in the execution. In 
the one Mr Godwin has hit upon the extreme 
point of the perfectly natural and perfectly new ; 
in the other he enters into the preternatural 
world, and comes nearer to the world of com- 
mon place. Still the character is of the same 



270 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

exalted intellectual kind. As the ruling passion 
of the one was the love of fame, so in the other 
the sole business of life is thought. Raised by 
the fatal discovery of the philosopher's stone 
above mortality, he is cut off from all participa- 
tion with its pleasures. He is' a limb torn from 
soeiety. In possession of eternal youth and 
beauty, he can feel no love \ surrounded, tanta- 
lized, tormented with riches, he can do no good. 
The races of men pass before him as in a specu- 
lum ; but be is attached to them by no common 
tie of sympathy or suffering. He is thrown 
back into himself and his own thoughts. He 
lives in the solitude of his own breast, — without 
wife or child, or friend, or enemy in the world. 
His is the solitude of the soul, — not of woods, 
or seas, or mountains, — but the desert of society, 
the waste and desolation of the heart. He is 
himself alone. His existence is purely contem- 
plative, and is therefore intolerable to one who 
has felt the rapture of affection or the anguish 
of woe. The contrast between the enthusiastic 
eagerness of human pursuits and their blank 
disappointment, was never, perhaps, more finely 
pourtrayed than in this novel. Marguerite, the 
wife of St Leon, is an instance of pure and dis- 
interested affection in one of the noblest of her 
sex. It is not improbable that the author found 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 27 1 



the model of this character in nature. — Of 
' Mandeville/ I shall say only one word. It ap- 
pears to me to be a falling off in the subject, not 
in the ability. The style and declamation are 
even more powerful than ever. But unless an 
author surpasses himself, and surprises the pub- 
lic as much the fourth or fifth time as he did the 
first, he is said to fall off, because there is not 
the same stimulus of novelty. A great deal is 
here made out of nothing, or out of a very dis- 
agreeable subject. I cannot agree that the story 
is out of nature. The feeling is very common 
indeed ; though carried to an unusual and im- 
probable excess, or to one with which from 
the individuality and minuteness of the circum- 
stances, we cannot readily sympathise. 

It is rare that a philosopher is a writer of 
romances. The union of the two characters in 
this author is a sort of phenomenon in the 
history of letters \ for I cannot but consider the 
author of 6 Political Justice' as a philosophical 
reasoner of no ordinary stamp or pretensions. 
That work, whatever its defects may be, is distin- 
guished by the most acute and severe logic, and 
by the utmost boldness of thinking, founded on 
a love and conviction of truth. It is a system 
of ethics, and one that, though I think it errone- 
ous myself, is built on following up into its 



272 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 

fair consequences, a very common and acknow- 
ledged principle, that abstract reason and gene- 
ral utility are the only test and standard of 
moral rectitude. If this principle is true, then 
the system is true : but I think that Mr God- 
win's book has done more than anything else 
to overturn the sufficiency of this principle by 
abstracting, in a strict metaphysical process, the 
influence of reason or the understanding in 
moral questions and relations from that of habit, 
sense, association, local and personal attach- 
ment, natural affection, &e. ; and by thus mak- 
ing it appear how necessary the latter are to our 
limited, imperfect, and mixed being, how im- 
possible the former as an exclusive guide of ac- 
tion, unless man were, or were capable of be- 
coming, a purely intellectual being. Reason is 
no doubt one faculty of the human mind, and 
the chief gift of Providence to man ; but it must 
itself be subject to and modified by other instincts 
and principles, because it is not the only one. 
This work then, even supposing it to be false, is 
invaluable, as demonstrating an important truth 
by the reductio ad absurdum ; or it is an experi- 
mentum crucis in one of the grand and trying 
questions of moral philosophy. — In delineating 
the character and feelings of the hermetic phi- 
losopher St Leon, perhaps the author had not 



ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 273 



far to go from those of a speculative philosophi- 
cal Recluse. He who deals in the secrets of 
magic, or in the secrets of the human mind, is 
too often looked upon with jealous eyes by the 
world, which is no great conjuror; he who 
pours out his intellectual wealth into the lap of 
the public, is hated by those who cannot under- 
stand how he came by it ; he who thinks beyond 
his age, cannot expect the feelings of his con- 
temporaries to go along with him ; he whose 
mind is of no age or country, is seldom properly 
recognized during his life-time, and must wait, 
in order to have justice done him, for the late 
but lasting award of posterity: — "Where his 
treasure is, there his heart is also." 



T 



LECTURE VII. 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH ! ON THE GRAND AND 
FAMILIAR STYLE OF PAINTING. 

If the quantity of amusement, or of matter for 
more serious reflection which their works have 
afforded, is that by which we are to judge of 
precedence among the intellectual benefactors of 
mankind, there are, perhaps, few persons who 
can put in a stronger claim to our gratitude 
than Hogarth. It is not hazarding too much to 
assert, that he was one of the greatest comic 
geniuses that ever lived, and he was certainly 
one of the most extraordinary men this country 
has produced. Criticism has not done him jus- 
tice, though public opinion has. His works 
have received a sanction which it would be vain 
to dispute, in the universal delight and admira- 
tion with which they have been regarded, from 
their first appearance to the present moment. 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 275 

The wonderful knowledge which he possessed 
of human life and manners, is only to be sur- 
passed (if it can be) by the power of invention 
with which he has combined and contrasted his 
materials in the most ludicrous and varied points 
of view, and by the mastery of execution with 
which he has embodied and made tangible the 
very thoughts and passing movements of the 
mind. Critics sometimes object to the style of 
Hogarth's pictures, or to the class to which they 
belong. First, he belongs to no class, or if he 
does, it is to the same classes as Fielding, Smol- 
lett, Vanbrugh, and Moliere. Besides, the 
merit of his pictures does not depend on the na- 
ture of the subject, but on the knowledge dis- 
played of it, on the number of ideas they excite, 
on the fund of thought and observation con- 
tained in them. They are to be studied as works 
of science as well as of amusement : they satisfy 
our love of truth y they fill up the void in the 
mind; they form a series of plates in natural 
history, and of that most interesting part of 
natural history, the history of our own species. 
Make what deductions you please for the vul- 
garity of the subject, yet in the research, the 
profundity, the absolute truth and precision of 
the delineation of character ; in the invention 



276 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

of incident, in wit and humour ; in the life with 
which they are " instinct in every part;" in 
everlasting variety and originality ; they never 
have, and probably never will be surpassed. 
They stimulate the faculties as well as soothe 
them. 66 Other pictures we see, Hogarth's we 
read." 

The public had not long ago an opportunity 
of viewing most of Hogarth's pictures, in the 
collection made of them at the British Gallery. 
The superiority of the original paintings to the 
common prints, is in a great measure confined 
to the 4 Marriage a-la-Mode,' with which I shall 
begin my remarks. 

Boccaccio, the most refined and sentimental 
of all the novel-writers, has been stigmatized as 
a mere inventor of licentious tales, because read- 
ers in general have only seized on those things 
in his works which were suited to their own 
taste, and have thus reflected their own grossness 
back upon the writer. So it has happened, that 
the majority of critics having been most struck 
with the strong and decided expression in 
Hogarth, the extreme delicacy and subtle gra- 
dations of character in his pictures have almost 
entirely escaped them. In the first picture of 
the 6 Marriage a-la-Mode/ the three figures of 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 277 

the young nobleman, his intended bride, and her 
inamorato, the lawyer, show how much Hogarth 
excelled in the power of giving soft and effemi- 
nate expression. They have, however, been less 
noticed than the other figures, which tell a 
plainer story, and convey a more palpable moral. 
Nothing can be more finely managed than the 
difference of character in these delicate person- 
ages. The beau sits smiling at the looking- 
glass, with a reflected simper of self-admiration, 
and a languishing inclination of the head, while 
the rest of his body is perked up on his high 
heels, with a certain air of tip-toe elevation. 
He is the Narcissus of the reign of George II, 
whose powdered peruke, ruffles, gold lace, and 
patches, divide his self-love equally with his 
own person, the true Sir Plume of his day, — 

" Of amber snuff-box justly vain, 

And the nice conduct of a clouded cane " 

There is the same felicity in the figure and 
attitude of the bride, courted by the lawyer. 
There is the utmost flexibility, and yielding soft- 
ness in her whole person, a listless languor and 
tremulous suspense in the expression of her face. 
It is the precise look and air which Pope has 
given to his favourite Belinda, just at the mo- 
ment of the i Rape of the Lock/ The heighten- 
ed glow, the forward intelligence, and loosened 



278 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

soul of love in the same face, in the Assignation- 
scene before the masquerade, form a fine and 
instructive contrast to the delicacy, timidity, 
and coy reluctance expressed in the first. The 
lawyer, in both pictures, is much the same — 
perhaps too much so — though even this un- 
moved, unaltered appearance may be designed 
as characteristic. In both cases, he has a a 
person and a smooth dispose, framed to make 
women false." He is full of that easy good- 
humour, and easy good opinion of himself, with 
which the sex are delighted. There is not a 
sharp angle in his fac to obstruct his success, 
or give a hint of doubt or difficulty . His whole 
aspect is round and rosy, lively aud unmeaning, 
happy without the least expense of thought, 
careless, and inviting ; and conveys a perfect 
idea of the uninterrupted glide and pleasing 
murmur of the soft periods that flow from his 
tongue. 

The expression of the bride in the Morning- 
scene is the most highly seasoned, and at the 
same time the most vulgar in the series. The 
figure, face, and attitude of the husband are in- 
imitable. Hogarth has with great skill con- 
trasted the pale countenance of the husband 
with the yellow whitish colour of the marble 
chimney-piece behind him, in such a manner as 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 279 

to preserve the fleshy tone of the former. The 
airy splendour of the view of the inner room in 
this picture, is probably not exceeded by any of 
the productions of the Flemish school. 

The Young Girl, in the third picture, who is 
represented as a victim of fashionable profli- 
gacy, is unquestionably one of the artist's 
chefs-d'oeuvre. The exquisite delicacy of the 
painting is only surpassed by the felicity and 
subtlety of the conception. Nothing can be 
more striking than the contrast between the 
extreme softness of her person and the hardened 
indifference of her character. The vacant 
stillness, the docility to vice, the premature 
suppression of youthful sensibility, the doll- 
like mechanism of the whole figure, which 
seems to have no other feeling but a sickly 
sense of pain, — show the deepest insight into 
human nature, and into the effects of those 
refinements in depravity, by which it has been 
good-naturedly-asserted, that " vice loses half 
its evil in losing all its grossness." The story 
of this picture is in some parts very obscure and 
enigmatical. It is certain that the Nobleman 
is not looking straight-forward to the Quack, 
whom he seems to have been threatening with 
his cane ; but that his eyes are turned up with 
an ironical leer of triumph to the Procuress. 



280 ON THE WORK9 OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

The commanding attitude and size of this 
woman, — the swelling circumference of her 
dress, spread out like a turkey-cock's feathers, 
— the fierce, ungovernable, inveterate malignity 
of her countenance, which hardly needs the 
comment of the clasp-knife to explain her 
purpose, are all admirable in themselves, and 
still more so, as they are opposed to the mute 
insensibility, the elegant negligence of dress, 
and the childish figure of the girl, who is 
supposed to be her protegee. As for the Quack, 
there can be no doubt entertained about him. 
His face seems as if it were composed of salve, 
and his features exhibit all the chaos and con- 
fusion of the most gross, ignorant, and impudent 
empiricism. 

The gradations of ridiculous affectation in 
the Music-scene, are finely imagined and pre- 
served. The preposterous, overstrained admi- 
ration of the Lady of Quality ; the sentimental, 
insipid, patient delight of the Man with his hair 
in papers, and sipping his tea ; the pert, smirk- 
ing, conceited, half- distorted approbation of the 
figure next to him ; the transition to the total 
insensibility of the round face in profile, and 
then to the wonder of the Negro-boy at the 
rapture of his mistress, — form a perfect whole. 
The sanguine complexion and flame-coloured 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 281 

hair of the female Virtuoso throw an additional 
light on the character. This is lost in the 
print. The continuing the red colour of the 
hair into the back of the chair, has been pointed 
out as one of those instances of alliteration in 
colouring, of which these pictures are every- 
where full. The gross, bloated appearance of 
the Italian Singer is well relieved by the hard 
features of the instrumental Performer behind 
him, which might be carved of wood. The 
Negro-boy, holding the chocolate, in expres- 
sion, colour, and execution, is a master piece. 
The gay, lively derision of the other Negro- 
boy, playing with the Actseon, is an inge- 
nious contrast to the profound amazement of 
the first. Some account has already been 
given of the two lovers in this picture. It is 
curious to observe the infinite activity of mind 
which the artist displays on every occasion. 
An instance occurs in the present picture. He 
has so contrived the papers in the hair of the 
Bride, as to make them look almost like a 
wreath of half-blown flowers ; while those 
which he has placed on the head of the musi- 
cal Amateur very much resemble a chevaux* 
de-frise of horns, which adorn and fortify the 
lack-lustre expression and mild resignation of 
the face beneath. 

The ' Night Scene' is inferior to the rest of the 



282 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

series. The attitude of the Husband, who is 
just killed, is one in w T hich it would be impos- 
sible for him to stand, or even to fall. It 
resembles the loose pasteboard figures they 
make for children. The characters in the last 
picture, in which the wife dies, are all masterly. 
We would particularly refer to the captious, 
petulant self-sufficiency of the Apothecary, 
whose face and figure are constructed on exact 
physiognomical principles, and to the fine ex- 
ample of passive obedience, and non-resistance 
in the Servant, whom he is taking to task, and 
whose coat of green and yellow livery is as long 
and melancholy as his face. The disconsolate 
look, the haggard eyes, the open mouth, the 
comb sticking in the hair, the broken, gapped 
teeth, which, as it were, hitch in an answer- — 
everything about him denotes the utmost 
perplexity and dismay. The harmony and 
gradations of colour in this picture are uni- 
formly preserved with the greatest nicety, and 
are well worthy the attention of the artist. 

We have so far attempted to point out the 
fund of observation, physical and moral, con- 
tained in one set of these pictures, the 6 Marriage 
a-la-Mode.' The rest would furnish as many 
topics to descant upon, were the patience of the 
reader as inexhaustible as the painter's invention. 
But as this is not the case, we shall content 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 283 

ourselves with barely referring to some of those 
figures in the other pictures, which appear the 
most striking; and which we see, not only- 
while we are looking at them, but which we 
have before us at all other times. For instance: 
who, having seen, can easily forget that exqui- 
site frost-piece of religion and morality, the 
antiquated prude, in the picture of 6 Morning ? 9 
or that striking commentary on the " good old 
times, " the little wretched appendage of a foot- 
boy, who crawls, half-famished and half-frozen, 
behind her ? The French man and woman, in 
the ' Noon/ are the perfection of flighty affec- 
tation and studied grimace; the amiable frater- 
nization of the two old women saluting each 
other, is not enough to be admired; and in 
the little master, in the same national group, 
we see the early promise and personification 
of that eternal principle of wondrous self- 
complacency proof against all circumstances, 
which makes the French the only people 
who are vain, even of being cuckolded and 
being conquered ! Or shall we prefer to this, 
the outrageous distress and unmitigated ter- 
rors of the boy who has dropped his dish of 
meat, and who seems red all over with shame 
and vexation, and bursting with the noise he 
makes ? Or what can be better than the good 
housewifery of the girl underneath, who is de- 



284 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

vouring the lucky fragments? Or than the 
plump, ripe, florid, luscious look of the servant- 
wench, embraced by a greasy rascal of an Othello, 
with her pye-dish tottering like her virtue, and 
with the most precious part of its contents run- 
ning over ? J ust— no, not quite — as good, is the 
joke of the woman over head, who, having quar- 
relled with her husband, is throwing their Sun- 
day's dinner out of the window, to complete this 
chapter of accidents of baked dishes. The hus- 
band,^ the 6 Evening Scene/ is certainly as meek 
as any recorded in history ; but we cannot say 
that we admire this picture, or the 6 Night Scene ' 
after it. But then, in the 6 Taste in High Life/ 
there is that inimitable pair, differing only in 
sex, congratulating and delighting one another 
by " all the mutually reflected charities" of folly 
and affectation ; with the young lady, coloured 
like a rose, dandling her little, black, pug-faced, 
white-teethed, chuckling favourite; and with 
the portrait of M. Des Noyers, in the back- 
ground, dancing in a grand ballet, surrounded 
by butterflies. And again, in i The Election 
Dinner/ is the immortal cobbler, surrounded by 
his peers, who, " frequent and fell,"— 

" In loud recess and brawling conclave sit ! ** 

the J ew, in the second picture, a very Jew in 
grain — innumerable fine sketches of heads in the 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 285 

6 Polling for Votes,' of which the nobleman, 
overlooking the caricaturist, is the best; — and 
then the irresistible, tumultuous display of broad 
humour in the 6 Chairing the Member/ which 
is, perhaps, of all Hogarth's pictures, the most 
full of laughable incidents and situations. The 
yellow, rusty-faced thresher, with his swinging 
flail, breaking the head of one of the chairmen ; 
and his redoubted antagonist, the sailor, with his 
oak stick, and stumping wooden leg, a supple- 
mental cudgel — the persevering ecstasy of the 
hobbling blind fiddler, who, in the fray, appears 
to have been trod upon by the artificial excres- 
cence of the honest tar — Monsieur, the monkey, 
with piteous aspect, speculating the impending 
disaster of the triumphant candidate ; and his 
brother Bruin, appropriating the paunch — the 
precipitous flight of the pigs, souse over head 
into the water ; the fine lady fainting, with ver- 
milion lips ; and the two chimney-sweepers, 
satirical young rogues ! — I had almost forgot 
the politician, who is burning a hole through 
his hat with a candle in reading a newspaper ; 
and the chickens, in the 6 March to Finchley/ 
wandering in search of their lost dam, who is 
found in the pocket of the Serjeant. Of the 
pictures in the ( Rake's Progress/ exhibited in 
this collection, I shall not here say anything, 



286 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

because I think them, on the whole, inferior to 
the prints, and because they have already been 
criticised by a writer, to whom I could add 
nothing, in a paper which ought to be read by 
every lover of Hogarth and of English genius — 
I mean, * Mr Lamb's Essay on the works of Ho- 
garth.' I shall at present proceed to form some 
estimate of the style of art in which this painter 
excelled. 

What distinguishes his compositions from all 
others of the same general kind, is, that they are 
equally remote from caricature and from mere 
still life. It of course happens in subjects taken 
from common life, that the painter can procure 
real models, and he can get them to sit as long 
as he pleases. Hence, in general, those atti- 
tudes and expressions have been chosen which 
could be assumed the longest ; and in imitating 
which, the artist, by taking pains and time, 
might produce almost as complete facsimiles as 
he could of a flower or a flower-pot, of a damask 
curtain or a china vase. The copy was as per- 
fect and as uninteresting in the one case as in 
the other. On the contrary, subjects of drollery 
and ridicule, affording frequent examples of 
strange deformity and peculiarity of features, 
these have been eagerly seized by another class 
of artists, w T ho, without subjecting themselves to 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 287 



the laborious drudgery of the Dutch school and 
their imitators, have produced our popular cari- 
catures, by rudely copying or exaggerating the 
casual irregularities of the human countenance. 
Hogarth has equally avoided the faults of both 
these styles ; the insipid tameness of the one, and 
the gross extravagance of the other, so as to give 
to the productions of his pencil equal solidity 
and effect. For his faces go to the very verge 
of caricature, and yet never (I believe in any 
single instance) go beyond it : they take the very 
widest latitude, and yet we always see the links 
which bind them to nature : they bear all the 
marks, and carry all the conviction of reality 
with them, as if we had seen the actual faces for 
the first time, from the precision, consistency, 
and good sense with which the whole and every 
part is made out. They exhibit the most uncom- 
mon features, with the most uncommon expres- 
sions ; but which yet are as familiar and intelli- 
gible as possible, because, with all the boldness, 
they have all the truth of nature. Hogarth has 
left behind him as many of these memorable 
faces, in their memorable moments, as, perhaps, 
most of us remember in the course of our lives, 
and has thus doubled the quantity of our expe- 
rience. 

It will assist us in forming a more determi- 



288 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

nate idea of the peculiar genius of Hogarth, to 
compare him with a deservedly admired artist 
in our own times. The highest authority on 
art in this country, I understand, has pro- 
nounced that Mr Wilkie united the excellencies 
of Hogarth to those of Teniers. I demur to 
this decision in both its branches : but in de- 
murring to authority it is necessary to give our 
reasons. I conceive that this ingenious and 
attentive observer of nature has certain essen- 
tial, real, and indisputable excellencies of his 
own ; and I think it, therefore, the less import- 
ant to clothe him with any vicarious merits 
which do not belong to him. Mr Wilkie's 
pictures, generally speaking, derive almost 
their whole value from their reality, or the 
truth of the representation. They are works 
of pure imitative art ; and the test of this style 
of composition is to represent nature faithfully 
and happily in its simplest combinations* It 
may be said of an artist like Mr Wilkie, that 
nothing human is indifferent to him. His mind 
takes an interest in, and it gives an interest to, 
the most familiar scenes and transactions of 
life. He professedly gives character, thought, 
and passion, in their lowest degrees, and in their 
every-day forms. He selects the commonest 
events and appearances of nature for his sub- 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 289 

jects; and trusts to their very commonness for 
the interest and amusement he is to excite. 
Mr Wilkie is a serious, prosaic, literal narrator 
of facts \ and his pictures may be considered 
as diaries, or minutes of what is passing con- 
stantly about us. Hogarth, on the contrary, 
is essentially a comic painter ; his pictures are 
not indifferent, unimpassioned, transcripts of 
incidental scenes or customs, or descriptions of 
human nature, but rich, exuberant moral satires, 
exposing vice and folly in their most ludicrous 
points of view, and, with a profound insight 
into the weak sides of character and manners 
in all their tendencies, combinations, and con- 
trasts. There is not a single picture of his con- 
taining a representation of merely natural or 
domestic scenery. He is carried away by a 
passion for the ridiculous. His object is not so 
much " to hold the mirror up to nature" as " to 
show vice her own feature, scorn her own image." 
He is so far from contenting himself with still- 
life that he is always on the verge of caricature, 
though without ever falling into it. He does not 
represent folly or vice in its incipient, or dor- 
mant, or grub state ; but full-grown, with wings, 
pampered into all sorts of affectation, airy, os- 
tentatious, and extravagant. Folly is there 
seen at the height — the moon is at the full ; it 

u 



290 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC* 

is "the very error of the time/' There is a 
perpetual collision of eccentricities— a tilt and 
tournament of absurdities ; the prejudices and 
caprices of mankind are let loose, and set toge- 
ther by the ears, as in a bear-garden* Hogarth 
paints nothing but comedy or tragi-comedy. 
Wilkie paints neither one nor the other. Ho- 
garth never looks at any object but to find out a 
moral or a ludicrous effect. Wilkie never looks 
at any object but to see that it is there. Ho- 
garth's pictures are a perfect jest-book from one 
end to the other. I do not remember a single 
joke in Wilkie's, except one very bad one of the 
boy in the 6 Blind Fiddler/ scraping the grid- 
iron, or fire-shovel, I forget which it is.* In 
looking at Hogarth, you are ready to burst your 
sides with laughing at the unaccountable jumble 
of odd things which are brought together ; you 
look at Wilkie' s pictures with a mingled feeling 
of curiosity and admiration at the accuracy of 
the representation. For instance, there is a 
most admirable head of a man coughing in 
the ' Rent-day ; ' the action, the keeping, the 
choked sensation, are inimitable ; but there is 
nothing to laugh at in a man coughing. What 
strikes the mind is the difficulty of a man's 

* The waiter drawing the cork, in the » * Rent-day,' is 
another exception, and quite Hogarthian. 



ON THE WORKS OP HOGARTH, ETC. 291 

being painted coughing, which here certainly is 
a masterpiece of art. But turn to the black- 
guard cobbler in the A Election Dinner,' who 
has been smutting his neighbour's face over, 
and who is lolling out his tongue at the joke, 
with a most surprising obliquity of vision, and 
immediately i( your lungs begin to crow like 
chanticleer.'' Again, there is the little boy cry- 
ing in the 6 Cut Finger,' who only gives you 
the idea of a cross, disagreeable, obstinate child 
in pain ; whereas the same face in Hogarth's 
4 Noon,' from the ridiculous perplexity it is 
in, and its extravagant, noisy, unfelt distress, 
at the accident of having let fall the pye-dish, 
is quite irresistible. Mr Wilkie, in his picture 
of the 6 Ale-house Door,' I believe, painted 
Mr Liston as one of the figures without any 
great effect. Hogarth would have given any 
price for such a subject, and would have made 
it worth any money. I have never seen any- 
thing in the expression of comic humour equal 
to Hogarth's pictures but Liston's face ! 

Mr Wilkie paints interiors, but still you ge- 
nerally connect them with the country. Ho- 
garth, even when he paints people in the open 
air, represents them either as coming from 
London, as in the polling for votes at Brent- 
ford, or as returning to it, as the dyer and his 



292 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

wife at Bagnigge Wells. In this last picture 
he has contrived to convert a common rural 
image into a type and emblem of city honours. 
In fact, I know no one who had a less pastoral 
imagination than Hogarth. He delights in the 
thick of St Giles's or St James's. His pictures 
breathe a certain close, greasy, tavern air. The 
fare he serves up to us consists of high-seasoned 
dishes, ragouts, and olla podridas, like the sup- 
per in ' Gil Bias,' which it requires a strong 
stomach to digest. Mr Wilkie presents us with 
a sort of lenten fare, very good and wholesome, 
but rather insipid than overpowering ! Mr 
Wilkie's pictures are, in general, much better 
painted than Hogarth's ; but the 6 Marriage-a- 
la-Mode' is superior both in colour and execu- 
tion to any of Wilkie's. I may add here, with- 
out any disparagement, that, as an artist, Mr 
Wilkie is hardly to be mentioned with Teniers. 
Neither in truth and brilliant clearness of colour- 
ing, nor in facility of execution, is there any 
comparison, Teniers was a perfect master in all 
these respects, and our own countryman is posi- 
tively defective, notwithstanding the very laud- 
able care with which he finishes every part of 
his pictures. There is an evident smear and 
dragging of the paint, which is also of a bad 
purple or puttyish tone, and which never appears 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 293 

in the pictures of the Flemish artist, any more 
than in a looking-glass. Teniers, probably 
from his facility of execution, succeeded in 
giving a more local and momentary expres- 
sion to his figures. They seem each going on 
with his particular amusement or occupation ; 
Wilkie' s have, in general, more a look of sitting 
for their pictures. Their compositions are very 
different also; and in this respect, I believe, 
Mr Wilkie has the advantage. Teniers' s boors 
are usually amusing themselves at skittles, or 
dancing, or drinking, or smoking, or doing what 
they like, in a careless, desultory way ; and so 
the composition is loose and irregular. Wilkie's 
figures are all drawn up in a regular order, and 
engaged in one principal action, with occasional 
episodes. The story of the 6 Blind Fiddler ' is 
the most interesting and the best told. The two 
children standing before the musician are de- 
lightful. The 6 Card-players ' is the best co- 
loured of his pictures, if I am not mistaken. 
The 'Village Politicians/ though excellent as 
to character and composition, is inferior as a 
picture to those which Mr Wilkie has since 
painted. His latest pictures, however, do not 
appear to me to be his best. There is some- 
thing of manner and affectation in the grouping 
of the figures, and a pink and rosy colour spread 



294 ON THE WOKKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

over them, which is out of place. The hues of 
Rubens and Sir Joshua do not agree with Mr 
Wilkie's subjects. One of his last pictures, 
that of ' Duncan Gray/ is equally remarkable 
for sweetness and simplicity in colour, composi- 
tion, and expression. I must here conclude 
this very general account ; for to point out the 
particular beauties of every one of his pictures 
in detail, would require an Essay by itself. 

I have promised to say something in this 
Lecture on the difference between the grand 
and familiar style of painting ; and I shall 
throw out what imperfect hints I have been able 
to collect on this subject, so often attempted and 
never yet succeeded in, taking the examples and 
illustrations from Hogarth, that is, from what 
he possessed or wanted in each kind, 

And first, the difference is not that between 
imitation and invention ; for there is as much of 
this last quality in Hogarth as in any painter or 
poet whatever. As for example, to take two of 
his pictures only, I mean the ' Enraged Mu- 
sician ' and the e Gin Lane ; ' in one of which 
every conceivable variety of disagreeable and 
discordant sound — the razor-grinder turning his 
wheel ; the boy with his drum, and the girl with 
her rattle momentarily suspended ; the pursui- 
vant blowing his horn ; the shrill milk-woman ; 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 295 

the inexorable ballad-si nger, with her squalling 
infant ; the pewterer's shop close by ; the fish- 
women ; the chimney-sweepers at the top of 
a chimney, and the two cats in melodious con- 
cert on the ridge of the tiles; with the bells 
ringing in the distance, as we see by the flags 
flying ;— and in the other, the complicated forms 
and signs of death and ruinous decay — the wo- 
man on the stairs of the bridge asleep, letting 
her child fall over; her ghastly companion 
opposite, next to death's door, with hollow, 
famished cheeks and staring ribs ; the dog- 
fighting with the man for the bare shin-bone ; 
the man hanging himself in a garret; the 
female corpse put into a coffin by the parish 
beadle; the men marching after a funeral, seen 
through a broken wall in the back ground ; and 
the very houses reeling as if drunk and tumbling 
about the ears of the infatuated victims below, 
the pawnbroker's being the only one that stands 
firm and unimpaired — enforce the moral meant 
to be conveyed by each of these pieces with a 
richness and research of combination and artful 
contrast not easily paralleled in any production 
of the pencil or the pen, The clock pointing to 
four in the morning, in 6 Modern Midnight Con- 
versation,' just as the immoveable Parson Ford 
is filling out another glass from a brimming 



296 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

punch-bow], while most of his companions, 
with the exception of the sly lawyer, are falling 
around him " like leaves in October and again, 
the extraordinary mistake of the man leaning 
against the post, in the 6 Lord Mayor's Proces- 
sion ' — show a mind capable of seizing the most 
rare and transient coincidences of things, of 
imagining what either never happened at all, or 
of instantly fixing on and applying to its pur- 
pose what never happened but once. So far, 
the invention shown in the great style of paint- 
ing is poor in the comparison. Indeed, gran- 
deur is supposed (whether rightly or not, I 
shall not here inquire) to imply a simplicity 
inconsistent with this inexhaustible variety of 
incident and circumstantial detail. 

Secondly, the difference between the ideal and 
familiar style is not to be explained by the dif- 
ference between the genteel and vulgar , for it 
is evident that Hogarth was almost as much at 
home in the genteel comedy as in the broad 
farce of his pictures. He excelled not only in 
exhibiting the coarse humours and disgusting 
incidents of the lowest life, but in exhibiting the 
vices, the follies, and the frivolity of the fashion- 
able manners of his time : his fine ladies do not 
yield the palm of ridicule to his waiting-maids, 
and his lords and his footmen are on a very 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 297 

respectable footing of equality. There is no 
want, for example, in the 6 Marriage-a-la-Mode,' 
or in i Taste in High Life/ of affectation verg- 
ing into idiotcy, or of languid sensibility that 
might — 

ci Die of a rose in aromatic pain." 

Many of Hogarth's characters would form 
admirable illustrations of Pope's Satires, who 
was contemporary with him. In short, Hogarth 
was a painter, not of low but of real life ; and 
the ridiculous and prominent features of high or 
low life, 66 of the great vulgar or the small," lay 
equally open to him. The country girl, in the 
first plate of the 6 Harlot's Progress,' coming 
out of the waggon, is not more simple and un- 
gainly than the same figure, in the second, is 
thoroughly initiated into the mysteries of her art, 
and suddenly accomplished in all the airs and 
graces of affectation, ease, and impudence* 
The affected languor and imbecility of the same 
girl afterwards, when put to beat hemp in 
Bridewell, is exactly in keeping with the cha- 
racter she has been taught to assume. Sir 
J oshua could do nothing like it in his line cf 
portrait, which differed chiefly in the back 
ground. The fine gentleman at his levee, in 
the 'Rake's Progress,' is also a complete model 
of a person of rank and fortune, surrounded 



298 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC, 

by needy and worthless adventurers, fiddlers, 
poetasters and virtuosi, as was the custom in 
those days. Lord Chesterfield himself would 
not have been disgraced by sitting for it. I 
might multiply examples to show that Hogarth 
was not characteristically deficient in that kind 
of elegance which arises from an habitual atten- 
tion to external appearance and deportment. I 
will only add as instances, among his women, 
the two elegantes in the * Bedlam Scene/ who 
are dressed (allowing for the difference of not 
quite a century) " in the manner of Ackerman's 
fashions for May /' and among the men, the law- 
yer in ' Modern Midnight Conversation/ whose 
gracious significant leer and sleek lubricated 
countenance exhibit all the happy finesse of his 
profession, when a silk gown has been added, or is 
likely to be added to it ; and several figures in the 
Cockpit, who are evidently, at the first glance, 
gentlemen of the old school, and where the mix- 
ture of the blacklegs with the higher character 
is a still further test of the discriminating skill 
of the painter. 

Again, Hogarth had not only a perception of 
fashion, but a sense of natural beauty. There 
are as many pleasing faces in his pictures as in 
Sir Joshua. Witness the girl picking the 
rake's pocket in the i Bagnio ' scene, whom we 
might suppose to be "the charming Betsy 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC, 299 

Careless the poet's wife, handsomer than falls 
to the lot of most poets, who are generally 
more intent upon the idea in their own minds 
than on the image before them, and are glad to 
take up with dulcineas of their own creating ; 
the theatrical heroine in the 6 Southwark Fair/ 
who would be an accession to either of our 
play-houses ; the girl asleep ogled by the clerk 
in church-time, and the sweetheart of the 6 Good 
Apprentice' in the reading desk, in the second 
of that series, almost an ideal face and expres- 
sion ; the girl in her cap selected for a partner 
by the footman in the print of ' Morning/ very 
handsome; and many others equally so, scat- 
tered like " stray-gifts of love and beauty" 
through these pictures. Hogarth was not then 
exclusively the painter of deformity. He 
painted beauty oivugliness indifferently, as they 
came in his way ; and was not by nature con- 
fined to those faces which are painful and dis- 
gusting, as many would have us believe. 

Again, neither are we to look for the solution 
of the difficulty in the difference between the 
comic and the tragic, between loose laughter and 
deep passion. For Mr Lamb has shown unan- 
swerably that Hogarth is quite at home in 
scenes of the deepest distress, in the heart- 
rending calamities of common life, in the ex- 



300 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

pression of ungovernable rage, silent despair, 
or moody madness, enhanced by the tenderest 
sympathy, or aggravated by the frightful con- 
trast of the most impenetrable and obdurate 
insensibility, as we see strikingly exemplified in 
the latter prints of the 6 Rake's Progress/ To 
the unbeliever in Hogarth's power over the 
passions and the feelings of the heart, the cha- 
racters there speak like et the hand- writing on the 
wall." If Mr Lamb has gone too far in paral- 
leling some of these appalling representations 
with Shakspeare, he was excusable in being led 
to set off what may be considered as a stagger- 
ing paradox against a rooted prejudice. At 
any rate the inferiority of Hogarth (be it what it 
may) did not arise from a want of passion and 
intense feeling ; and in this respect he had the 
advantage over Fielding, for instance, and others 
of our comic writers, who excelled only in the 
light and ridiculous. There is in general a dis- 
tinction, almost an impassable one, between the 
power of embodying the serious and the ludi- 
crous ; but these contradictory faculties were 
reconciled in Hogarth, as they were in Shak- 
speare, in Chaucer, and as it is said that they 
were in another extraordinary and later instance, 
Garrick's acting. 

None of these, then, will do : neither will the 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 301 

most masterly and entire keeping of character 
lead us to an explanation of the grand and ideal 
style ; for Hogarth possessed the most complete 
and absolute mastery over the truth and identity 
of expression and features in his subjects. Every 
stroke of his pencil tells according to a precon- 
ception in his mind. If the eye squints, the 
mouth is distorted; every feature acts and is 
acted upon by the rest of the face ; even the 
dress and attitude are such as could be proper 
to no other figure : the whole is under the in- 
fluence of one impulse, that of truth and nature. 
Look at the heads in the Cockpit already men- 
tioned, one of the most masterly of his produc- 
tions in this way, where the workings of the 
mind are seen in every muscle of every face ; 
and the same expression, more intense or re- 
laxed, of hope or of fear, is stamped on each of 
the characters, so that you could no more trans- 
pose any part of one countenance to another, 
than you could change a profile to a front face. 
Hogarth was, in one sense, strictly an historical 
painter : that is, he represented the manners and 
humours of mankind in action, and their cha- 
racters by varied expression. Everything in his 
pictures has life and motion in it. Not only 
does the business of the scene never stand still, 
but every feature is put into full play; the 



302 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

exact feeling of the moment is brought out, and 
carried to its utmost height, and then instantly 
seized and stamped on the canvass for ever. The 
expression is always taken en passant, in a state 
of progress or change, and, as it were, at the 
salient point. Besides the excellence of each 
individual face, the reflection of the expression 
from face to face, the contrast and struggle of 
particular motives and feelings in the different 
actors in the scene, as of anger, contempt, 
laughter, compassion, are conveyed in the hap- 
piest and most lively manner. His figures are 
not like the back-ground on which they are 
painted : even the pictures on the wall have a 
peculiar look of their own. All this is effected 
by a few decisive and rapid touches of the pen- 
cil, careless in appearance, but infallible in their 
results ; so that one great criterion of the grand 
style insisted on by Sir J oshua Reynolds, that 
of leaving out the details, and attending to ge- 
neral character and outline, belonged to Hogarth. 
He did not, indeed, arrive at middle forms or 
neutral expression, which Sir Joshua makes 
another test of the ideal ; for Hogarth was not 
insipid. That was the last fault with which he 
could be charged. But he had breadth and 
boldness of manner, as well as any of them ; so 
that neither does that constitute the ideal. 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 303 

What then does ? We have reduced this to 
something like the last remaining quantity in an 
equation, where all the others have been ascer- 
tained. Hogarth had all the other parts of an 
original and accomplished genius except this ; 
but this he had not. He had an intense feeling 
and command over the impressions of sense, of 
habit, of character, and passion, the serious and 
the comie, in a word, of nature, as it fell within 
his own observation, or came within the sphere 
of his actual experience; but he had little power 
beyond that sphere, or sympathy with that 
which existed only in idea. He was 66 con- 
formed to this world, not transformed." If he 
attempted to paint Pharaoh's daughter, and Paul 
before Felix, he lost himself. His mind had 
feet and hands, but not wings to fly with. There 
is a mighty world of sense, of custom, of every- 
day action, of accidents and objects coming 
home to us, and interesting because they do so ; 
the gross, material, stirring, noisy world of com- 
mon life and selfish passion, of which Hogarth 
was absolute lord and master : there is another 
mightier world, that which exists only in con- 
ception and in power, the universe of thought 
and sentiment, that surrounds and is raised 
above the ordinary world of reality, as the em- 



304 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

pyrean surrounds this nether globe, into which 
few are privileged to soar with mighty wings 
outspread, and in which, as power is given them 
to embody their aspiring fancies, to " give to 
airy nothing a local habitation and a name/' to 
fill with imaginary shapes of beauty or sublimity, 
and make the dark abyss pregnant, bringing 
that which is remote home to us, raising them- 
selves to the lofty, sustaining themselves on the 
refined and abstracted, making all things like 
not what we know and feel in ourselves, in this 
" ignorant present" time, but like what they 
must be in themselves, or in our noblest idea of 
them, and stamping that idea with reality, (but 
chiefly clothing the best and the highest with 
grace and grandeur :) this is the ideal in art, in 
poetry, and in painting. There are things which 
are cognizable only to sense, which interest only 
our more immediate instincts and passions ; the 
want of food, the loss of a limb, or of a sum of 
money : there are others that appeal to different 
and nobler faculties ; the wants of the mind, the 
hunger and thirst after truth and beauty ; that 
is, to faculties commensurate with objects greater 
and of greater refinement, which to be grand 
must extend beyond ourselves to others, and our 
interest in which must be refined in proportion 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 305 

as they do so.* The interest in these subjects 
is in proportion to the power of conceiving them, 
and the power of conceiving them is in propor- 
tion to the interest and affection for them, to the 
innate bias of the mind to elevate itself above 
everything low, and purify itself from every- 
thing gross. Hogarth only transcribes or tran- 
sposes what was tangible and visible, not the 
abstracted and intelligible. You see in his 
pictures only the faces which you yourself have 
seen, or others like them ; none of his charac- 
ters are thinking of any person or thing out of 
the picture ; you are only interested in the ob- 
jects of their contention or pursuit, because they 
themselves are interested in them. There is 
nothing remote in thought, or comprehensive in 
feeling. The whole is intensely personal and 
local, but the interest of the ideal and poetical 
style of art, relates to more permanent and uni- 
versal objects ; and the characters and forms 
must be such as to correspond with and sustain 

* When Meg Merrilies says in her dying moments — 
" Nay, nay, lay my head to the east/' what was the east 
to her ? Not a reality, but an idea of distant time and the 
land of her forefathers ; the last, the strongest, and the 
best that occurred to her in this world. Her gipsy slang 
and dress were quaint and grotesque ; her attachment to 
the Kaim of Derncleugh and the wood of Warrock was 
romantic ; her worship of the east was ideal. 

x 



306 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

that interest, and give external grace and dig- 
nity to it. Such were the subjects which Ra- 
phael chose; faces imbued with unalterable 
sentiment, and figures that stand in the eternal 
silence of thought. He places before you ob- 
jects of everlasting interest, events of greatest 
magnitude, and persons in them fit for the scene 
and action — warriors and kings, princes and 
nobles, and greater yet, poets and philosophers, 
and mightier than these, patriarchs and apostles, 
prophets and founders of religion, saints and 
martyrs, angels and the Son of God. We 
know their importance and their high calling, 
and we feel that they do not belie it. We see 
them as they were painted, with the eye of faith. 
The light which they have kindled in the world 
is reflected back upon their faces ; the awe and 
homage which has been paid to them is seated 
upon their brow, and encircles them like a 
glory. All those who come before them are 
conscious of a superior presence. For example, 
the beggars in the Gate Beautiful are impressed 
with this ideal borrowed character. Would not 
the cripple and the halt feel a difference of sen- 
sation, and express it outwardly in such cir- 
cumstances ? And was the painter wrong to 
transfer this sense of preternatural power and 
the confidence of a saving faith to his canvass ? 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 307 

Hogarth's 6 Pool of Bethesda,' on the contrary, 
is only a collection of common beggars receiv- 
ing an alms. The waters may be stirred, but 
the mind is not stirred with them. The fowls, 
again, in the ' Miraculous Draught of Fishes/ 
exult and clap their wings, and seem lifted up 
with some unusual cause of joy. There is not 
the same expansive, elevated principle in Ho- 
garth. He has amiable and praise-worthy cha- 
racters, indeed, among his bad ones. The mas- 
ter of the industrious and idle apprentice is a 
good citizen and a virtuous man ; but his bene- 
volence is mechanical and confined ; it extends 
only to his shop, or, at most, to his ward. His 
face is not ruffled by passion, nor is it inspired 
by thought. To give another instance, the face 
of the faithful female fainting in the prison- 
scene in the ' Rake's Progress,' is more one of 
effeminate softness than of disinterested tender- 
ness, or heroic constancy. But in the pictures 
of the ' Mother and Child,' by Raphael and 
Leonardo Da Vinci, we see all the tenderness 
purified from all the weakness of maternal 
affection, and exalted by the prospects of reli- 
gious faith ; so that the piety and devotion of 
future generations seems to add its weight to 
the expression of feminine sweetness and paren- 
tal love, to press upon the heart, and breathe in 



308 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

the countenance. This is the ideal, passion 
blended with thought and pointing to distant 
objects, not debased by grossness, not thwarted 
by accident, not weakened by familiarity, but 
connected with forms and circumstances that 
give the utmost possible expansion and refine- 
ment to the general sentiment. With all my 
admiration of Hogarth, I cannot think him 
equal to Raphael. I do not know whether if 
the portfolio were opened, I would not as soon 
look over the prints of Hogarth as those of Ra- 
phael ; but assuredly, if the question were put 
to me, I w r ould sooner never have seen the prints 
of Hogarth than never have seen those of Ra- 
phael. It is many years ago since I first saw 
the prints of the i Cartoons' hanging round the 
old-fashioned parlour of a little inn in a remote 
part of the country. I was then young : I had 
heard of the fame of the 6 Cartoons/ but this was 
the first time I had ever been admitted face to 
face into the presence of those divine works. 
u How was I then uplifted!" Prophets and 
apostles stood before me as in a dream, and the 
Saviour of the Christian world with his attri- 
butes of faith and power ; miracles were work- 
ing on the walls ; the hand of Raphael was 
there ; and as his pencil traced the lines, I saw 
godlike spirits and lofty shapes descend and 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 309 

walk visibly the earth, but as if their thoughts 
still lifted them above the earth. There I saw 
the figure of St Paul, pointing with noble fer- 
vour to " temples not made with hands, eternal 
in the heavens and that finer one of Christ 
in the boat, whose whole figure seems sustained 
by meekness and love ; and that of the same 
person surrounded by his disciples, like a flock 
of sheep listening to the music of some divine 
shepherd. I knew not how enough to admire 
them. If from this transport and delight there 
arose in my breast a wish, a deep aspiration of 
mingled hope and fear to be able one day to do 
something like them, that hope has long since 
vanished ; but not with it the love of art, nor 
delight in the works of art, nor admiration of 
the genius which produces them, nor respect for 
fame which rewards and crowns them ! Later in 
life, I saw other works of this great painter 
(with more like them) collected in the Louvre, 
where Art at that time lifted up her head, 
and was seated on her throne, and said, 
"All eyes shall see me, and all knees shall 
bow to me ! " Honour was done to her and all 
hers. There was her treasure, and there the 
inventory of all she had. There she had 
gathered together her pomp, and there was her 
shrine, and there her votaries came and wor- 
shipped as in a temple. The crown she wore 



310 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 

was brighter than that of kings. Where the 
struggles for human liberty had been there were 
the triumphs of human genius. For there, in 
the Louvre, were the precious monuments of 
art ; there " stood the statue that enchants the 
world there was ' Apollo/ the ' Laocoon/ the 
* Dying Gladiator/ the head of the < Antinous/ 
c Diana with her Fawn/ the * Muses and the 
Graces 3 in a ring, and all the glories of the 
antique world : — 

" There was old Proteus coming from the sea, 
And wreathed Triton blew his winding horn." 

There, too, were the two 6 St J eromes/ Corre- 
gio's and Domenichino's ; there was Raphael's 
6 Transfiguration/ the ' St Mark 9 of Tintoret, 
Paul Veronese's ( Marriage of Cana/ the ' De- 
luge ' of Poussin, and Titian's 6 St Peter Mar- 
tyr.' It was there that I learned to become an 
enthusiast of the lasting works of the great 
painters, and of their names no less magnifi- 
cent : grateful to the heart as the sound of celes- 
tial harmony from other spheres, waking around 
us (whether heard or not) from youth to age ; 
the stay, the guide and anchor of our purest 
thoughts ; whom, having once seen, we always 
remember, and who teach us to see all things 
through them ; without whom life would be to 
begin again, and the earth barren ; of Raphael, 



ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 311 

who lifted the human form half-way to Heaven; 
of Titian, who painted the mind in the face, and 
unfolded the soul of things to the eye ; of Ru- 
bens, around whose pencil gorgeous shapes 
thronged numberless, startling us by the novel 
accidents of form and colour, putting the spirit 
of motion into the universe, and weaving a gay 
fantastic round and bacchanalian dance with 
nature; of Rembrandt, too, who (6 smoothed 
the raven down of darkness till it smiled," and 
tinged it with a light like streaks of burnished 
ore; of these, and more than these, of whom 
the world was scarce worthy, and for the loss of 
whom nothing could console me — not even the 
works of Hogarth ! 



LECTURE VIII. 



ON THE COMIC "WRITERS OF THE LAST 
CENTURY. 

The question which has been often asked, 
"Why there are comparatively so few good 
modem comedies ? " appears in a great mea- 
sure to answer itself. It is because so many 
excellent comedies have been written, that there 
are none written at present. Comedy naturally 
wears itself out — destroys the very food on 
which it lives ; and by constantly and success- 
fully exposing the follies and weaknesses of 
mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself 
nothing worth laughing at. It holds the mirror 
up to nature, and men seeing their most striking 
peculiarities and defects, pass in gay review be- 
fore them, learn either to avoid or conceal 
them. It is not the criticism which the pub- 
lic taste exercises upon the stage, but the 
criticism which the stage exercises upon pub- 
lic manners that is fatal to comedy, by ren- 



ON THE COMIC WRITERS, ETC. 313 

dering the subject-matter of it tame, correct, 
and spiritless. We are drilled into a sort of 
stupid decorum, and forced to wear the same 
dull uniform of outward appearance ; and yet it 
is asked, why the Comic Muse does not point, 
as she was wont, at the peculiarities of our gait 
and gesture, and exhibit the picturesque con- 
trasts of our dress and costume, in all that 
graceful variety in which she delights. The 
genuine source of comic writing, 

" Where it must live, or have no life at all," 

is undoubtedly to be found in the distinguishing 
peculiarities of men and manners. Now this 
distinction can subsist, so as to be strong, 
pointed, and general, only while the manners 
of different classes are formed almost imme- 
diately by their particular circumstances, and 
the characters of individuals by their natural 
temperament and situation, without being ever- 
lastingly modified and neutralized by inter- 
course with the world — by knowledge and 
education. In a certain stage of society, men 
may be said to vegetate like trees, and to be- 
come rooted to the soil in which they grow. 
They have no idea of any thing beyond them- 
selves and their immediate sphere of action 5 



314 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

they are, as it were, circumscribed, and defined 
by their particular circumstances; they are 
what their situation makes them, and nothing 
more. Each is absorbed in his own profession 
or pursuit, and each in his turn contracts that 
habitual peculiarity of manners and opinions 
which makes him the subject of ridicule to 
others, and the sport of the Comic Muse. 
Thus the physician is nothing but a physician, 
the lawyer is a mere lawyer, the scholar de- 
generates into a pedant, the country squire is 
a different species of being from the fine gentle- 
man, the citizen and the courtier inhabit each a 
different world, and even the affectation of 
certain characters, in aping the follies or vices 
of their betters, only serves to show the im- 
measurable distance which custom or fortune 
has placed between them. Hence the earlier 
comic writers, taking advantage of this mixed 
and solid mass of ignorance, folly, pride, and 
prejudice, made those deep and lasting incisions 
into it, — have given those sharp and nice 
touches, that bold relief to their characters, — 
have opposed them in every variety of contrast 
and collision, of conscious self-satisfaction and 
mutual antipathy, with a power which can only 
find full scope in the same rich and inex- 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



315 



haustible materials. But in proportion as comic 
genius succeeds in taking off the mask from 
ignorance and conceit, as it teaches us 

" To see ourselves as others see us," — 

in proportion as we are brought out on the 
stage together, and our prejudices clash one 
against the other, our sharp angular points wear 
off ; we are no longer rigid in absurdity, pas- 
sionate in folly, and we prevent the ridicule 
directed at our habitual foibles by laughing at 
them ourselves. 

If it be said, that there is the same fund of 
absurdity and prejudice in the world as ever— 
that there are the same unaccountable perver- 
sities lurking at the bottom of every breast,— 
I should answer, Be it so: but at least we 
keep our follies to ourselves as much as possi- 
ble; we palliate, shuffle, and equivocate with 
them ; they sneak into bye-corners, and do not, 
like Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, march 
along the high road, and form a procession ; 
they do not entrench themselves strongly behind 
custom and precedent ; they are not embodied 
in professions and ranks in life; they are not 
organized into a system; they do not openly 
resort to a standard, but are a sort of straggling 
nondescripts, that, like Wart, i( present no 



316 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

mark to the foeman." As to the gross and 
palpable absurdities of modern manners, they 
are too shallow and barefaced, and those who 
affect are too little serious in them, to make 
them worth the detection of the Comic Muse. 
They proceed from an idle, impudent affec- 
tation of folly in general, in the dashing bravura 
style, not from an infatuation with any of its 
characteristic modes. In short, the proper 
object of ridicule is egotism : and a man cannot 
be a very great egotist, who every day sees 
himself represented on the stage. We are 
deficient in comedy, because we are without 
characters in real life — as we have no historical 
pictures, because we have no faces proper for 
them. 

It is, indeed, the evident tendency of all 
literature to generalise and dissipate character, 
by giving men the same artificial education, 
and the same common stock of ideas ; so that 
we see all objects from the same point of view, 
and through the same reflected medium; — we 
learn to exist, not in ourselves, but in books ; — 
all men become alike mere readers — spectators, 
not actors in the scene, and lose their proper 
personal identity. The templar, the wit, the 
man of pleasure, and the man of fashion, the 
courtier and the citizen, the knight and the 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



317 



squire, the lover and the miser — Lovelace, 
Lothario, Will Honeycomb, and Sir Roger de 
Coverley, Sparkish and Lord Foppington, Wes- 
tern and Tom Jones, My Father and My 
Uncle Toby, Millamant and Sir Sampson Le- 
gend, Don Quixote and Sancho, Gil Bias and 
Guzman d'Alfarache, Count Fathom and Jo- 
seph Surface, — have met and exchanged com- 
mon-places on the barren plains of the haute 
literature — toil slowly on to the temple of 
science, " seen a long way off upon a level," 
and end in one dull compound of politics, 
criticism, chemistry, and metaphysics ! 

We cannot expect to reconcile opposite 
things. If, for example, any of us were to put 
ourselves into the stage-coach from Salisbury 
to London, it is more than probable we should 
not meet with the same number of odd acci- 
dents, or ludicrous distresses on the road, that 
befell Parson Adams ; but why, if we get into a 
common vehicle, and submit to the conveniences 
of modern travelling, should we complain of 
the want of adventures? Modern manners 
may be compared to a modern stage-coach; 
our limbs may be a little cramped with the con- 
finement, and we may grow drowsy, but we 
arrive safe, without any very amusing or very 
sad accident, at our journey's end. 



318 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

In this theory I have, at least, the authority 
of Sterne and the 6 Tatler' on my side, who 
attribute the greater variety and richness of 
comic excellence in our writers, to the greater 
variety and distinctness of character among 
ourselves ; the roughness of the texture and the 
sharp angles not being worn out by the arti- 
ficial refinements of intellect, or the frequent 
collision of social intercourse. — It has been 
argued on the other hand, indeed, that this 
circumstance makes against me ; that the sup- 
pression of the grosser indications of absurdity 
ought to stimulate and give scope to the inge- 
nuity and penetration of the comic writer who 
is to detect them ; that the progress of wit and 
humour ought to keep pace with critical dis- 
tinctions and metaphysical niceties ; [that the 
more we are become like one another, or like 
nothing, the less distinction of character we 
have, the greater discrimination must it require 
to bring it out ; that the less ridiculous our 
manners become, the more scope do they afford 
for art and ingenuity in discovering our weak 
sides and shades of infirmity, and that the 
greatest sameness and monotony, must in the 
end produce the most exquisite variety. What 
a pity it is, that so ingenious a theory should 
not have the facts on its side; and that the 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



319 



perfection of satire should not be found to keep 
pace with the want of materials. It is rather 
too much to assume on a mere hypothesis, that 
the present manners are equally favourable to 
the productiou of the highest comic excellence, 
till they do produce it. Even in France, where 
encouragement is given to the noblest and most 
successful exertions of genius by the sure prospect 
of profit to yourself or your descendants, every 
time your piece is acted in any corner of the em- 
pire, — we find the best critics going back to the 
grossness and illiberality of the age of Louis XIV 
for the production of the best comedies ; which 
is rather extraordinary, considering the infinitely 
refined state of manners in France, and the in- 
finite encouragement given to dramatic talent. 
But there is a difference between refinement 
and imbecility, between general knowledge and 
personal elegance, between metaphysical sub- 
tlety and stage-effect. All manners, all kinds 
of folly, and all shades of character are not 
equally fit for dramatic representation. There 
is a point where minuteness of distinction be- 
comes laborious foolery, and where the slender- 
ness of the materials must baffle the skill and 
destroy the exertions of the artist. A critic of 
this sort will insist, indeed, on pulling off the 
mask of folly, by some ingenious device, though 



320 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



she has been stripped of it long ago, and forced 
to compose her features into a decent appearance 
of gravity ; and apply a microscope of a new 
construction to detect the freckles on her face 
and inequalities in her skin, in order to commu-: 
nicate amusing discoveries to the audience, as- 
some philosophical lecturer does the results of 
his chemical experiments on the decomposition 
of substances to the admiring circle. There is 
no end of this. His penetrating eye is infinitely 
delighted with the grotesque appearance of so 
many imperceptible deviations from a right line, 
and mathematical inclinations from the perpen- 
dicular. The picture of the 6 Flamborough Fa- 
mily/ painted with each an orange in his hand, 
must have been a master-piece of nice discri- 
mination and graceful inflection. Upon this 
principle of going to work the wrong way, and 
of making something out of nothing, we must 
reverse all our rules of taste and common sense. 
No comedy can be perfect till the dramatis per- 
sonce might be reversed without creating much 
confusion ; or the ingredients of character ought 
to be so blended and poured repeatedly from one 
vessel into another, that the difference would be 
perceptible only to the finest palate. Thus, if 
Moliere had lived in the present day, he would 
not have drawn his 6 Avare/ his ' Tartuffe/ and 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 321 

his Misanthrope with those strong touches and 
violent contrasts which he has done, but with 
those delicate traits which are common to 
human nature in general, that is, his Miser 
without avarice, his Hypocrite without design, 
and his Misanthrope without disgust at the vices 
of mankind ;] these theorists, in short, have been 
sanguine enough to expect a regular advance 
from grossness to refinement in wit and plea- 
santry, on the stage and in real life, marked on 
a graduated scale of human perfectibility, and 
have been hence led to imagine that the best of 
our old comedies were no better than the coarse 
jests of a set of country clowns — a sort of 
comedies bourgeoises, compared with the admi- 
rable productions which might, but have not, 
been written in our times. I must protest 
against this theory altogether, which would go 
to degrade genteel comedy from a high court 
lady into a literary prostitute. I do not know 
what these persons mean by refinement in this 
instance. Do they find none in Millamant and 
her morning dreams, in Sir Roger de Coverley 
and his widow? Did not Etherege, Wycher- 
ley, Suckling, and Congreve, approach tole- 
rably near 

" the ring 

Of mimic statesmen and their merry king ?" 

Y 



322 



ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



Is there no distinction between an Angelica 
and a Miss Prue, a Valentine, a Tattle, and a 
Ben ? Where, in the annals of modern litera- 
ture, shall we find anything more refined, 
more deliberate, more abstracted in vice than 
the nobleman in 6 Amelia V Are not the compli- 
ments which Pope paid to his friends, to Mur- 
ray and to Cornbury, equal in taste and ele- 
gance to any which have been paid since ? Are 
there no traits in Sterne ? Is not Richardson 
minute enough? Must we part with Sophia 
Western and her muff, and Clarissa Harlowe's 
preferable regards n for the loves of the plants 
and the triangles ? Or shall we say that the 
Berinthias and Alitheas of former times were 
mere rustics, because they did not, like our 
modern belles, subscribe to circulating libraries, 
read ' Beppo/ prefer 6 Gertrude of Wyoming 9 to 
the 6 Lady of the Lake/ or the 6 Lady of the 
Lake' to i Gertrude of Wyoming/ differ in their 
sentiments on points of taste or systems of 
mineralogy, compose learned treatises, and 
deliver dissertations on the arts with Corinna 
of Italy ? They had something else to do and 
to talk about. They were employed in reality, 
as we see them on the stage, in setting off their 
charms to the greatest advantage, in mortifying 
their rivals by the most pointed irony, and 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



323 



trifling with their lovers with infinite address. 
The height of comic elegance and refinement 
is not to be found in the general diffusion of 
knowledge and civilization, which tends to level 
and neutralise, but in the pride of individual dis- 
tinction, and the contrast between the conflict- 
ing pretensions of different ranks in society. [The 
beauty of these writers in general was that they 
gave every kind and gradation of character, 
and they did this because their portraits were 
taken from life. They were true to nature, full 
of meaning, perfectly understood and executed 
in every part. Their coarseness was not mere 
vulgarity, their refinement was not a mere 
negation of precision. They refined upon 
characters, instead of refining them away. 
Their refinement consisted in working out the 
parts, not in leaving a vague outline. They 
painted human nature as it was, and as they 
saw it with individual character and circum- 
stances, not human nature in general, abstracted 
from time, place, and circumstance. Strength 
and refinement are so far from being incom- 
patible, that they assist each other, as the 
hardest bodies admit of the finest touches and 
the brightest polish. But there are some minds 
that never understand anything, but by a ne- 
gation of its opposite. There is a strength with- 



324 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

out refinement, which is grossness, as there is a 
refinement without strength or effect, which is 
insipidity. Neither are grossness and refine- 
ment of manners inconsistent with each other 
in the same period. The grossness of one class 
adds to the refinement of another, by circum- 
scribing it, by rendering the feeling more 
pointed and exquisite, by irritating our self- 
love, &c. There can be no great refinement 
of character where there is no distinction of 
persons. The character of a gentleman is a 
relative term. The diffusion of knowledge, of 
artificial and intellectual equality, tends to level 
this distinction, and to confound that nice per- 
ception and high sense of honour, which arises 
from conspicuousness of situation, and a per- 
petual attention to personal propriety, and the 
claims of personal respect. It is common, 
I think, to mistake refinement of individual 
character for general knowledge and intellectual 
subtlety, with which it has little more to do 
than with the dexterity of a rope dancer or 
juggler. The age of chivalry is gone with 
the improvements in the art of war, which 
superseded personal courage, and the character 
of a gentleman must disappear with those re- 
finements in intellect which render the advan- 
tages of rank and situation common almost to 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



325 



any one. The bag wig and sword followed the 
helmet and spear, when these outward insignia 
no longer implied a real superiority, and were 
a distinction without a difference. Even the 
grossness of a state of mixed and various 
manners receives a degree of refinement from 
contrast and opposition, by being defined and 
implicated with circumstances. The Upholsterer 
in 6 The Tatler ■ is not a mere vulgar politician. 
His intense feeling of interest and curiosity 
about what does not at all concern him, dis- 
plays itself in the smallest things, assumes 
the most eccentric forms, and the peculiarity 
of his absurdity masks itself under various 
shifts and evasions, which the same folly, 
when it becomes epidemic and universal, as it 
has since done, would not have occasion tore- 
sort to. In general it is only in a state of mere 
barbarism or indiscriminate refinement that 
we are to look for extreme grossness or com- 
plete insipidity* Our modern dramatists, indeed, 
have happily contrived to unite both extremes. 
Omne tulit punctum. On a soft ground of sen- 
timent they have daubed in the gross absurdi- 
ties of modern manners void of character, have 
blended romantic waiting-maids with jockey 
noblemen, and the humours of the four-in-hand 
club, and fill up the piece by some vile and 



326 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

illiberal caricature of particular individuals 
known on the town. 

Some persons are for refining comedy into a 
pure intellectual abstraction, the shadow of a 
shade. Will they forgive me if I suggest, as 
an addition to this theory, that the drama in 
general might be constructed on the same 
abtruse and philosophical principles ? As they 
imagine that the finest comedies may be formed 
without individual character, so the deepest 
tragedies might be composed without real 
passion. The slightest and most ridiculous 
distresses might be improved, by art and 
metaphysical aid, into the most affecting scenes. 
A young man might naturally be introduced 
as the hero of a philosophic drama, who had 
lost the gold medal for a prize-poem; or a 
young lady, whose verses had been severely 
criticized in the reviews. Nothing could come 
amiss to this rage for speculative refinement y 
or the actors might be supposed to come for- 
ward, not in any character, but as a sort 
of chorus, reciting speeches on the general 
miseries of the human life, or reading alter- 
nately 'a passage out of Seneca's ' Morals' or 
Voltaire's 'Candide/ This might by some 
be thought a great improvement on English 
tragedy, or even on the French, 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 327 

The whole of such reasoning proceeds on a 
total misconception of the nature of the drama 
itself. It confounds philosophy with poetry, 
laboured analysis with intuitive perception, 
general truth with individual observation. ( It 
makes the comic muse a dealer in riddles, and 
an expounder of hieroglyphics, and a taste for 
dramatic excellence, a species of the second 
sight. It would have the drama to be the most 
remote, whereas it is the most substantial and 
real of all things. It represents not only looks, 
but motion and speech. The painter gives only 
the former, looks without action or speech, and 
, the mere writer only the latter, words without 
looks or action. Its business and its use is to 
express the thoughts and character in the most 
striking and instantaneous manner, in the man- 
ner most like reality. It conveys them in all 
their truth and subtlety, but in all their force 
and with all possible effect. It brings them 
into action, obtrudes them on the sight, 
embodies them in habits, in gestures, in dress, 
in circumstances, and in speech. It renders 
everything overt and ostensible, and presents 
human nature not in its elementary principles 
or by general reflections, but exhibits its essen- 
tial qualities in all their variety of combination, 
and furnishes subjects for perpetual reflection. 



328 ON TtfE COMIC WRITERS 

But the instant we begin to refine and gene- 
ralise beyond a certain point, we are reduced to 
abstraction, and compelled to see things, not as 
individuals, or as connected with action and 
circumstances, but as universal truths, appli- 
cable in a degree to all things, and in their 
extent to none, which therefore it would be 
absurd to predicate of individuals, or to repre- 
sent to the senses. The habit, too, of detaching 
these abstract species and fragments of nature, 
destroys the power of combining them in com- 
plex characters, in every degree of force and 
variety. The concrete and the abstract cannot 
co-exist in the same mind. We accordingly 
find, that to genuine comedy succeed satire 
and novels, the one dealing in general character 
and description, and the other making out par- 
ticulars by the assistance of narrative and com- 
ment. Afterwards come traits, [and collections 
of anecdotes, bon mots, topics, and quotations, 
&c. which are applicable to any one, and are 
just as good told of one person as another. 
Thus the trio in the Memoirs of M. Grimm, 
attributed to three celebrated characters, on 
the death of a fourth, might have the names 
reversed, and would lose nothing of its effect. 
In general these traits which are so much 
admired, are a sort of systematic libels on 



\ 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 329 

human nature, which make up, by their malice 
and acuteness, for their want of wit and sense. 

Sir Richard Steele thought that the excel- 
lence of the English in comedy was in a great 
measure owing to the originality and variety of 
character among them. With respect to that 
extreme refinement of taste which Madame de 
Stael advocates to the French, they are neither 
entirely without it, nor have they so much as 
they think. The two most refined things in the 
world are the story of the Falcon in Boccacio, 
and the character of Griselda in 6 Chaucer, 7 of 
neither of which the French would have the 
smallest conception, because they do not depend 
on traits, or minute circumstances, or turns of 
expression, but in infinite simplicity and truth, 
and an everlasting sentiment. We might retort 
upon Madame de Stael what she sometimes says 
in her own defence — u That we understand s all in 
other writers that is worth understanding/ 9 As to 
Moliere, he is quite out of the present question ; 
he lived long before the era of French philoso- 
phy and refinement, and is besides almost an 
English author, quite a barbare, in all in which 
he excels. To suppose that we can go on refi- 
ning for ever with vivacity and effect, embodying 
vague abstractions, and particularising flimsy 
generalities— " showing the very body of the 



330 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



age, its form and pressure," though it has 
neither form nor pressure left — seems to me the 
height of speculative absurdity. That undefined 
iC frivolous space/' beyond which Madame de 
Stael regards as u the region of taste and ele- 
gance," is, indeed, nothing but the very limbo 
of vanity, the land of chiromancy and occult 
conceit, and paradise of fools, where, 

" None yet, but store hereafter from the earth 
Shall, like aerial vapours, upward rise 
Of all things transitory and vain."] 

The alterations which have taken place in 
conversation and dress, in consequence of the 
change of manners in the same period, have been 
by no means favourable to comedy. The pre- 
sent prevailing style of conversation is not per- 
sonal, but critical and analytical. It consists 
almost entirely in the discussion of general 
topics, in ascertaining the merits of authors and 
their works ; and Congreve would be able to 
derive no better hints from the conversations of 
our toilettes or drawing-rooms, for the exquisite 
raillery or poignant repartee of his dialogues, 
than from a deliberation of the Royal Society. In 
like manner, the extreme simplicity and graceful 
uniformity of modern dress, however favour- 
able to the arts, has certainly stript comedy of 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



331 



one of its richest ornaments and most expres- 
sive symbols. The sweeping pall, and buskin, and 
nodding plume were never more serviceable to 
tragedy, than the enormous hoops and stiff stays 
worn by the belles of former days, were to the 
intrigues of comedy. They assisted wonderfully 
in heightening the mysteries of the passion, and 
adding to the intricacy of the plot. Wycherley 
and Vanbrugh could not have spared the 
dresses of Vandyke. These strange fancy- 
eostumes, perverse disguises, and counterfeit 
shapes gave an agreeable scope to the imagina- 
tion. i( That seven-fold fence " was a sort of 
foil to the lusciousness of the dialogue, and a 
barrier against the sly encroachments of double 
entendre. The greedy eye and bold hand of in- 
discretion were repressed, which gave a greater 
license to the tongue. The senses were not to 
be gratified in an instant. Love was entangled 
in the folds of the swelling handkerchief, and the 
desires might wander for ever round the circum- 
ference of a quilted petticoat, or find a rich 
lodging in the folds of a damask stomacher. 
There was room for years of patient contrivance, 
for a thousand thoughts, schemes, conjectures, 
hopes, fears, and wishes. There seemed no end of 
obstacles and delays ; to overcome so many dif- 
ficulties was the work of ages. A mistress was 



332 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

an angel, concealed behind whalebone, flounces, 
and brocade. What an undertaking to pene- 
trate through the disguise ! What an impulse 
must it give to the blood, what a keenness to 
the invention, what a volubility to the tongue ! 
" Mr Smirk, you are a brisk man," was then 
the most significant commendation ; but now-a- 
days, a woman can be but undressed! Again, 
the character of the fine gentleman is at present 
a little obscured on the stage, nor do we imme- 
diately recognise it elsewhere, for want of the 
formidable insignia of a bag-wig and sword. 
Without these outward credentials, the public 
must not only be unable to distinguish this cha- 
racter intuitively, but it must be 66 almost afraid 
to know itself." The present simple disguise 
of a gentleman is like the incognito of kings. 
The opinion of others affects our opinion of 
ourselves; and we can hardly expect from a 
modern man of fashion that air of dignity and 
superior gracefulness of carriage which those 
must have assumed who were conscious that 
all eyes were upon them, and that their lofty 
pretensions continually exposed them either to 
public scorn or challenged public admiration. 
A lord who should take the wall of the plebeian 
passengers without a sword by his side, would 
hardly have his claim of precedence acknow- 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



333 



ledged ; nor could he be supposed to have that 
obsolete air of self-importance about him, which 
should alone clear the pavement at his approach. 
It is curious how an ingenious actor of the pre- 
sent day (Mr Farren) should play Lord Ogleby 
so well as he does, having never seen anything 
of the sort in reality. A nobleman in full cos- 
tume and in broad day, would be a phenomenon 
like the lord mayor's coach. The attempt at 
getting up genteel comedy at present is a sort 
of Galvanic experiment, a revival of the dead. 

There is a certain stage of society in which 
people become conscious of their peculiarities 
and absurdities, affect to disguise what they are, 
and set up pretensions to what they are not. 
This gives rise to a corresponding style of 
comedy, the object of which is to detect the 
disguises of self-love, and to make reprisals on 
these preposterous assumptions of vanity, by 
marking the contrast between the real and the 
affected character as severely as possible, and 
denying to those, who would impose on us for 
what they are not, even the merit which they 
have. This is the comedy of artificial life, of 
wit and satire, such as we see it in Congreve, 
Wycherley, Vanbrugh, &c. To this succeeds a 
state of society from which the same sort of 
affectation and pretence are banished by a 



334 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

greater knowledge of the world, or by their 
successful exposure on the stage; and which, 
by neutralizing the materials of comic charac- 
ter, both natural and artificial, leaves no comedy 
at all — but the sentimental. Such is our modern 
comedy. There is a period in the progress of 
manners anterior to both these, in which the 
foibles and follies of individuals are of nature's 
planting, not the growth of art or study ; in 
which they are therefore unconscious of them 
themselves, or care not who knows them, if they 
can but have their whim out ; and in which, as 
there is no attempt at imposition, the spectators 
rather receive pleasure from humouring the in- 
clinations of the persons they laugh at, than 
wish to give them pain by exposing their absur- 
dity. This may be called the comedy of nature, 
and it is the comedy which we generally find in 
Shakspeare. 

I have observed in a former lecture, that the 
most spirited era of our comic drama was that 
which reflected the conversation, tone, and 
manners of the profligate, but witty age of 
Charles II. With the graver and more busi- 
ness-like turn which the Revolution probably 
gave to our minds, comedy stooped from her 
bolder and more fantastic flights ; and the fero- 
cious attack made by the nonjuring divine, 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 335 

Jeremy Collier, on the immorality and profane- 
ness of the plays then chiefly in vogue, nearly 
frightened those unwarrantable liberties of wit 
and humour from the stage which were no 
longer countenanced at court nor copied in the 
city. Almost the last of our writers who ven- 
tured to hold out in the prohibited track was a 
female adventurer, Mrs Centlivre, who seemed 
to take advantage of the privilege of her sex, 
and to set at defiance the cynical denunciations 
of the angry puritanical reformist. Her plays 
have a provoking spirit and volatile salt in them, 
which still preserves them from decay. Con- 
greve is said to have been jealous of their suc- 
cess at the time, and that it was one cause which 
drove him in disgust from the stage. If so, it 
was without any good reason, for these plays 
have great and intrinsic merit in them, which 
entitled them to their popularity (and it is 
only spurious and undeserved popularity which 
should excite a feeling of jealousy in any 
well-regulated mind) : and besides, their merit 
was of a kind entirely different from his own. 
The < Wonder' and the ' Busy Body' are pro- 
perly comedies of intrigue. Their interest de- 
pends chiefly on the intricate involution and 
artful denouement of the plot, which has a 
strong tincture of mischief in it, and the wit is 



336 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

seasoned by the archness of the humour and 
sly allusion to the most delicate points. They 
are plays evidently written by a very clever 
woman, but still by a woman : for I hold, in 
spite of any fanciful theories to the contrary, 
that there is a distinction discernible in the 
minds of women as well as in their faces. 
The 4 Wonder' is one of the best of our acting 
plays. The passion of jealousy in Don Felix 
is managed in such a way as to give as little 
offence as possible to the audience, for every 
appearance combines to excite and confirm his 
worst suspicions, while we, who are in the 
secret, laugh at his groundless uneasiness and 
apprehensions. The ambiguity of the heroine's 
situation, which is like a continued practical 
equivoque, gives rise to a quick succession of 
causeless alarms, subtle excuses, and the most 
hair-breadth 'scapes. The scene near the end, 
in which Don Felix, pretending to be drunk, 
forces his way out of Don Manuel's house, 
who wants to keep him a prisoner, by pro- 
ducing his marriage-contract in the shape 
of a pocket-pistol, with the terrors and con- 
fusion into which the old gentleman is thrown 
by this sort of argumentum ad hominem, is 
one of the richest treats the stage affords, and 
calls forth incessant peals of laughter and ap- 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



337 



plause. Besides the two principal characters 
(Violante and Don Felix) Lissardo and Flip- 
panta come in very well to carry on the under- 
plot ; and the airs and graces of an amorous 
waiting-maid and conceited man-servant, each 
copying after their master and mistress, were 
never hit off with more natural volubility or 
affected nonchalance than in this enviable couple. 
Lissardo's playing off the diamond ring before 
the eyes of his mortified Dulcinea, and aping 
his master's absent manner while repeating — 
" Roast me these Violantes," as well as the 
jealous quarrel of the two waiting-maids, which 
threatens to end in some very extraordinary 
discoveries, are among the most amusing traits 
in this comedy. Colonel Briton, the lover of 
Clara, is a spirited and enterprising soldier of 
fortune; and his servant Gibby's undaunted, 
incorrigible blundering, with a dash of nation- 
ality in it, tells in a very edifying way. — 6 The 
Busy Body' is inferior, in the interest of the 
story and characters, to the 6 Wonder ; 5 but it 
is full of bustle and gaiety from beginning to 
end. The plot never stands still ; the situations 
succeed one another like the changes of ma- 
chinery in a pantomime. The nice dove-tailing 
of the incidents, and cross-reading in the situa- 
tions, supplies the place of any great force of 



338 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

wit or sentiment. The time for the entrance 
of each person on the stage is the moment when 
they are least wanted, and when their arrival 
makes either themselves or somebody else look 
as foolish as possible. The laughableness of 
this comedy, as well as of ' The Wonder/ de- 
pends on a brilliant series of mistimed exits and 
entrances. Marplot is the whimsical hero of 
the piece, and a standing memorial of unmean- 
ing vivacity and assiduous impertinence. 

[' The Busy Body' is a comedy that has now 
held possession of the stage above a hundred 
years, (the best test of excellence) ; and the 
merit that has enabled it to do so, consists in 
the ingenuity of the contrivance, the liveliness 
of the plot, and the striking effect of the situa- 
tions. Mrs Centlivre, in this and her other 
plays, could do nothing without a stratagem ; 
but she could do every thing with one. She 
delights in putting her dramatis personce con- 
tinually at their wit's end, and in helping them 
off with a new evasion ; and the subtlety of her 
resources is in proportion to the criticalness of 
the situation and the shortness of the notice for 
resorting to an expedient, Twenty times, in 
seeing or reading one of her plays, your pulse 
beats quick, and you become restless and appre- 
hensive for the event j but with a fine theatrical 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 339 

sleight of hand, she lets you off, undoes the 
knot of the difficulty, and you breathe freely 
again, and have a hearty laugh into the bar- 
gain. In short, with her knowledge of cham- 
bermaid's tricks, and insight into the intricate 
foldings of lovers' hearts, she plays with the 
events of comedy, as a juggler shuffles about a 
pack of cards, to serve his own purposes, and 
to the surprise of the spectator. This is one of 
the most delightful employments of the dra- 
matic art. It costs nothing — but a voluntary 
tax on the inventive powers of the author ; and 
it produces, when successfully done, profit and 
praise to one party, and pleasure to all. To 
show the extent and importance of theatrical 
amusements (which some grave persons would 
decry altogether, and which no one can extol 
too highly), a friend of ours, whose name will 
be as well known to posterity as it is to his 
contemporaries, was not long ago mentioning, 
that one of the earliest and most memorable 
impressions ever made on his mind, was the 
seeing ' Venice Preserved ' acted in a country 
town when he was only nine years old. But 
he added, that an elderly lady who took him to 
see it, lamented, notwithstanding the wonder 
and delight he had experienced, that instead of 
* Venice Preserved,' they had not gone to see 



340 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

i The Busy Body/ which had been acted the 
night before. This was fifty years ago, since 
which, and for fifty years before that, it has 
been acted a thousand times in town and coun- 
try, giving delight to the old, the young, and 
middle-aged, passing the time carelessly, and 
affording matter for agreeable reflection after- 
wards, making us think ourselves, and wish to 
be thought, the men equal to Sir George Airy 
in grace and spirit, the women to Miranda and 
Isabinda in love and beauty, and all of us 
superior to Marplot in wit. Among the scenes 
that might be mentioned in this comedy, as 
striking instances of happy stage effect, are 
Miranda's contrivance to escape from Sir 
George, by making him turn his back upon 
her to hear her confession of love, and the 
ludicrous attitude in which he is left w r aiting 
for the rest of her speech after the lady has 
vanished ; his offer of the hundred pounds to 
her guardian to make love to her in his pre- 
sence, and when she receives him in dumb 
show, his answering for both; his situation 
concealed behind the chimney-screen ; his sup- 
posed metamorphosis into a monkey, and his 
deliverance from thence in that character by 
the interference of Marplot; Mrs Patch's 
sudden conversion of the mysterious love letter 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



341 



into a charm for the tooth-ache, and the whole 
of Marplot's meddling and blunders. The 
last character is taken from Dryden and the 
Duchess of Newcastle ; and is, indeed, the only 
attempt at character in the play. It is amusing 
and superficial. We see little of the puzzled 
perplexity of his brain, but his actions are 
absurd enough. He whiffles about the stage 
with considerable volubility, and makes a very 
lively automaton. Sir George Airy sets out 
for a scene or two in a spirited manner, but 
afterwards the character evaporates in the name; 
and he becomes as common place as his friend 
Charles, who merely laments over his mis- 
fortunes, or gets out of them by following the 
suggestions of his valet or his valet's mistress. 
Miranda is the heroine of the piece, and has a 
right to be so ; for she is a beauty and an 
heiress. Her friend has less to recommend her; 
but who can refuse to fall in love with her 
name ? What volumes of sighs, what a world 
of love, is breathed in the very sound alone — 
the letters that form the charming name of 
Isabinda !] 

The comedies of Steele were the first that 
were written expressly with a view not to imitate 
the manners, but to reform the morals of the 
age. The author seems to be all the time on 



342 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

his good behaviour, as if writing a comedy was 
no very creditable employment, and as if the 
ultimate object of his ambition was a dedication 
to the queen. Nothing can be better meant, or 
more inefficient. It is almost a misnomer to 
call them comedies ; they are rather homilies in 
dialogue, in which a number of very pretty 
ladies and gentlemen discuss the fashionable 
topics of gaming, of duelling, of seduction, of 
scandal, &c. with a sickly sensibility, that 
shows as little hearty aversion to vice as sin- 
cere attachment to virtue. By not meeting the 
question fairly on the ground of common ex- 
perience, by slurring over the objections, and 
varnishing the answers, the whole distinc- 
tion between virtue and vice (as it appears in 
evidence in the comic drama) is reduced to 
verbal professions, and a mechanical, infantine 
goodness. The sting is, indeed, taken out of 
what is bad; but what is good, at the same 
time, loses its manhood and nobility of nature 
by this enervating process. I am unwilling to 
believe that the only difference between right 
and wrong is mere cant, or make-believe ; and 
I imagine, that the advantage which the moral 
drama possesses over mere theoretical precept 
or general declamation is this, that by being 
left free to imitate nature as it is, and not being 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



343 



referred to an ideal standard, it is its own 
voucher for the truth of the inferences it draws, 
for its warnings, or its examples; that it brings 
out the higher as well as lower principles of 
action, in the most striking and convincing 
points of view ; satisfies us that virtue is not a 
mere shadow; clothes it with passion, imagi- 
nation, reality, and, if I may so say, translates 
morality from the language of theory into that 
of practice. But Steele, by introducing the 
artificial mechanism of morals on the stage, and 
making his characters act, not from individual 
motives and existing circumstances, the truth of 
which every one must feel, but from vague 
topics and general rules, the truth of which is 
the very thing to be proved in detail, has lost 
that fine 'vantage ground which the stage lends 
to virtue; takes away from it its best grace, 
the grace of sincerity ; and, instead of making 
it a test of truth, has made it an echo of the 
doctrine of the schools — and " the one cries 
Mum, while t'other cries Budget /" The comic 
writer, in my judgment, then, ought to open the 
volume of nature and the world for his living 
materials, and not take them out of his ethical 
common-place book; for in this way, neither 
will throw any additional light upon the 
other. In all things there is a division of 



344 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

labour ; and I am as little for introducing the 
tone of the pulpit or reading-desk on the stage, 
as for introducing plays and interludes in 
church-time, according to the good old popish 
practice. It was a part, indeed, of Steele's 
plan, 66 by the politeness of his style and the 
genteelness of his expressions/'* to bring about 
a reconciliation between things which he thought 
had hitherto been kept too far asunder, to wed 
the graces to the virtues, and blend pleasure 
with profit. And in this design he succeeded 
admirably in his 6 Tatler/ and some other works, 
but in his comedies he has failed. He has con- 
founded instead of harmonising — has taken 
away its gravity from wisdom, and its charm 
from gaiety. It is not that in his plays we find 
"some soul of goodness in things evil;" but 
they have no soul either of good or bad. His 
6 Funeral 9 is as trite, as tedious, and full of 
formal grimace, as a procession of mutes and 
undertakers. The characters are made either 
affectedly good and forbearing, with u all the 
milk of human kindness," or purposely bad and 
disgusting, for the others to exercise their 
squeamish charities upon them. ' The Con- 
scious Lovers ' is the best, but that is far from 



* See Mandeville's ' Fable of the Bees.' 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



345 



good, with the exception of the scene between 
Mr Thomas and Phillis, who are fellow-servants, 
and commence lovers from being set to clean the 
window together. We are here once more in 
the company of our old friend, Isaac Bickerstaff, 
Esq. Indiana is as listless and as insipid as a 
drooping figure on an Indian screen ; and Mr 
Myrtle and Mr Bevil only just disturb the still 
life of the scene. I am sorry that in this censure 
I should have Parson Adams against me, who 
thought 6 The Conscious Lovers' the only play fit 
for a Christian to see, and as good as a sermon. 
For myself, I would rather have read, or heard 
him read, one of his own manuscript sermons ; 
and if the volume which he left behind him in 
his saddle-bags was to be had in print for love 
or money, I would at any time walk ten miles on 
foot only to get a sight of it. 

Addison's 6 Drummer, or the Haunted House,' 
is a pleasant farce enough, but adds nothing to 
our idea of the author of the ' Spectator/ 

Pope's joint after-piece, called 6 An Hour after 
Marriage/ was not a successful attempt. He 
brought into it " an alligator stuffed," which 
disconcerted the ladies, and gave just offence to 
the critics. Pope was too fastidious for a farce 
writer ; and yet the most fastidious people, when 
they step out of their regular routine, are apt to 



346 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

become the grossest. The smallest offences 
against probability or decorum are, to their ha- 
bitual scrupulousness, as unpardonable as the 
greatest. This was the rock on which Pope 
probably split. The affair was, how r ever, hushed 
up ; and he wreaked his discreet vengeance at 
leisure on the " odious endeavours," and more 
odious success of Colley Cibber in the line in 
which he had failed. Gay's ' What-d'ye-call- 
it,' is not one of his happiest things. His 
6 Polly' is a complete failure, which, indeed, is 
the common fate of second parts. If the origi- 
nal Polly, in ' The Beggars' Opera/ had not had 
more winning ways with her, she would hardly 
have had so many countesses for representatives 
as she has had, from her first appearance up to 
the present moment. [Gay's capital work is his 
6 Beggars' Opera.' It is, indeed, a master-piece 
of wit and genius, not to say of morality. In 
composing it he chose a very unpromising ground 
to work upon, and he has prided himself in 
adorning it with all the graces, the precision and 
brilliancy of style. It is a vulgar error to call 
this a vulgar play. So far from it, that I do 
not scruple to say that it appears to me one of 
the most refined productions in the language. 
The elegance of the composition is in exact pro- 
portion to the coarseness of the materials $ by 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



347 



happy alchemy of mind/' the author has ex- 
tracted an essence of refinement from the dregs 
of human life, and turns its very dross into gold. 
The scenes, characters, and incidents are, in 
themselves, of the lowest and most disgusting 
kind i but, by the sentiments and reflections 
which are put into the mouths of highwaymen, 
turnkeys, their mistresses, wives, or daughters, 
he has converted this motley group into a set of 
fine gentlemen and ladies, satirists and philoso- 
phers. He has also effected this transformation 
without once violating probability, or " overstep- 
ping the modesty of nature." In fact, Gay has 
turned the tables on the critics; and by the 
assumed license of the mock-heroic style has 
enabled himself to do justice to nature, that is, to 
give all the force, truth, and locality of real feeling 
to the thoughts and expressions, without being 
called to the bar of false taste andjaffected delicacy. 
The extreme beauty and feeling of the song, 
u Woman is like the fair flower in its lustre," are 
only equalled by its characteristic propriety and 
naivete. It may be said that this is taken from 
Tibullus; but there is nothing about Covent- 
garden in Tibullus. Polly describes her lover 
going to the gallows with the same touching sim- 
plicity, and with all the natural fondness of a 
young girl in her circumstances, who sees in his 



348 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

approaching catastrophe nothing but the misfor- 
tunes and the personal accomplishments of the 
object of her affections. 66 I see him sweeter 
than the nosegay in his hand : the admiring 
crowd lament that so loyely a youth should 
come to an untimely end — eTen butchers weep, 
and Jack Ketch refuses his fee rather than 
consent to tie the fatal knot." The preservation 
of the character and costume is complete. It 
has been said by a great authority — " There is 
some soul of goodness in things evil:" — and 
6 The Beggars' Opera 5 is a good-natured but 
instructive comment on this text. The poet 
has thrown all the gaiety and sunshine of the 
imagination, all the intoxication of pleasure, 
and the vanity of despair, round the short- 
lived existence of his heroes ; while Peachum 
and Lockitt are seen in the back-ground, par- 
celling out their months and weeks between 
them. The general view exhibited of human life, 
is of the most subtle and abstracted kind. The 
author has, with great felicity, brought out the 
good qualities and interesting emotions almost 
inseparable from the lowest conditions ; and, 
w r ith the same penetrating glance, has detected 
the disguises which rank and circumstances 
lend to exalted vice. Every line in this ster- 
ling comedy sparkles with wit, and is fraught 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 349 

with the keenest sarcasm. The very wit, 
however, takes off from the offensiveness of 
the satire; and I have seen great statesmen, 
very great statesmen, heartily enjoying the 
joke, laughing most immoderately at the com- 
pliments paid to them as not much worse than 
pickpockets and cut-throats in a different line 
of life, and pleased, as it were, to see them- 
selves humanised by some sort of fellowship 
with their kind. Indeed, it may be said that 
the moral of the piece is to show the vulgarity 
of vice ; or that the same violations of integrity 
and decorum, the same habitual sophistry in 
palliating their want of principle, are common 
to the great and powerful, with the lowest and 
most contemptible of the species. What can 
be more convincing than the arguments used 
by these would-be-politicians, to show that in 
hypocrisy, selfishness, and treachery, they do 
not come up to many of their betters ? The 
exclamation of Mrs Peachum, when her 
daughter marries Macheath, " Hussey, hussey, 
y ou will be as ill-used, and as much neglected, 
as if you had married a lord," is worth all 
Miss Hannah More's laboured invectives on 
the laxity of the manners of high life ! * 

* The late ingenious Baron Grimm, of acute critical 
memory, was up to the merit of the 4 Beggars' Opera.' 
In his Correspondence, he says, " If it be true that the 



350 



ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



Fielding was a comic writer, as well as a 
novelist ; but his comedies are very inferior to 
his novels : they are particularly deficient both 
in plot and character. The only excellence 
which they have is that of the style, which is 
the only thing in which his novels are defi- 
cient. The only dramatic pieces of Fielding 

nearer a writer is to nature, the more certain he is of 
pleasing, it must be allowed that the English, in their 
dramatic pieces, have greatly the advantage over us. 
There reigns in them an inestimable tone of nature, 
which the timidity of our taste has banished from French 
pieces. M. Patu has just published, in two volumes, ' A 
selection of smaller dramatic pieces, translated from the 
English,* which will eminently support what I have ad- 
vanced. The principal one among this selection is the 
celebrated 4 Beggars' Opera' of Gay, which has had 
such an amazing run in England. We are here in the 
very worst company imaginable ; the dramatis persona 
are robbers, pickpockets, gaolers, prostitutes, and the 
like ; yet we are highly amused, and in no haste to quit 
them ; and why? Because there is nothing in the world 
more original or more natural. There is no occasion to 
compare our most celebrated comic operas with this, to 
see how far we are removed from truth and nature, and 
this is the reason that, notwithstanding our wit, we are 
almost always flat and insipid. Two faults are generally 
committed by our writers, which they seem incapable of 
avoiding. They think they have done wonders if they 
have only faithfully copied the dictionaries of the per- 
sonages they bring upon the stage, forgetting that the 
great art is to choose the moments of character and 
passion in those who are to speak, since it is those 
moments alone that render them interesting. For want 
of this discrimination, the piece necessarily sinks into 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



351 



that retain possession of the stage are, 6 The 
Mock Doctor ' (a tolerable translation from 
Moliere's Medecin malgre lui), and his ' Tom 
Thumb/ a very admirable piece of burlesque. 
The absurdities and bathos of some of our 
celebrated tragic writers could hardly be cre- 
dited, but for the notes at the bottom of this 
preposterous medley of bombast, containing 
his authorities and the parallel passages. Dry- 
den, Lee, and Shadwell, make no very shining 
figure there. Mr Liston makes a better 
figure in the text. His Lord Grizzle is prodi- 
gious. What a name, and what a person! 
It has been said of this ingenious actor, that 
" he is very great in Liston ; " but he is even 
greater in Lord Grizzle. What a wig is that 
he wears ! How flighty, flaunting and fan- 
tastical! Not "like those hanging locks of 
young Apollo," nor like the serpent-hair of the 
Furies of iEschylus ; but as troublous, though 
not as tragical as the one — as imposing, though 

insipidity and monotony. Why do almost all M. Vade's 
pieces fatigue the audience to death ? Because all his 
characters speak the same language ; because each is a 
perfect resemblance of the 'other. Instead of this, in 
* The Beggars' Opera,' among eight or ten girls of the 
town, each has her separate character, her peculiar 
trials, her peculiar modes of expression, which give her a 
marked distinction from her companions." — Vol. I, p. 185, 



352 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

less classical than the other. u Que terr-ibles 
sont ces cheveux gris" might be applied to 
Lord Grizzle's most valiant and magnanimous 
curls. This sapient courtier's 6( fell of hair does 
at a dismal treatise rouse and stir as life were 
in't." His wits seem flying away with the 
disorder of his flowing locks, and to sit as 
loosely on our hero's head as the caul of his 
peruke. What a significant vacancy in his 
open eyes and mouth ! what a listlessness in his 
limbs ! what an abstraction of all thought or 
purpose ! With what an headlong impulse of 
enthusiasm he throws himself across the stage 
when he is going to be married, crying, " Hey 
for Doctors Commons/' as if the genius of 
folly had taken whole-length possession of his 
person ! And then his dancing is equal to the 
discovery of a sixth sense — which is certainly 
very different from common seme! If this 
extraordinary personage cuts a great figure 
in his life, he is no less wonderful in his 
death and burial. " From the sublime to the 
ridiculous there is but one step and this cha- 
racter would almost seem to prove, that there 
is but one step from the ridiculous to the 
sublime. — Lubin Log, however inimitable in 
itself, is itself an imitation of something existing 
elsewhere ; but the Lord Grizzle of this truly 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



353 



original actor, is a pure invention of his own. 
His Caper, in the i Widow's Choice/ can alone 
dispute the palm with it in incoherence and 
volatility; for that, too, et is high fantastical/' 
almost as full of emptiness, in as grand a gusto 
of insipidity, as profoundly absurd, as elabo- 
rately nonsensical! Why does not Mr Liston 
play in some of Moliere's farces ? I heartily 
wish that the author of ' Love, Law, and Phy- 
sic/ would launch him on the London boards in 
Monsieur Jourdain or Monsieur Pourceaugnac. 
The genius of Liston and Moliere together — 

" Must bid a gay defiance to mischance." 

Mr Liston is an actor hardly belonging to the 
present age. Had he lived, unfortunately for 
us, in the time of Colley Cibber, we should 
have seen what a splendid niche he would have 
given him in his i Apology.' 

Cibber is the hero of the Dunciad ; but it 
cannot be said of him, that he w 7 as " by merit 
raised to that bad eminence." He was pert, 
not dull ; a coxcomb, not a blockhead ; vain, 
but not malicious. Pope's unqualified abuse 
of him was mere spleen; and the most ob- 
vious provocation to it seems to have been 
an excess of flippant vivacity in the constitution 
of Cibber. That Gibber's < Birth-day Odes ' 

% A 



354 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

were dull, is true ; but this was not peculiar to 
him. It is an objection which may be made 
equally to Shadwell's, to Whitehead's, to War- 
ton's, to Pye's, and to all others, except those 
which of late years have not been written ! In 
his ' Apology for his own Life/ Cibber is a 
most amusing biographer : happy in his own 
good opinion, the best of all others; teeming 
with animal spirits, and uniting the self-suffi- 
ciency of youth with the garrulity of age. His 
account of his waiting as a page behind the 
chair of the old Duchess of Marlborough at 
the time of the Revolution, who was then in 
the bloom of youth and beauty, which seems 
to have called up in him the secret homage of 
" distant, enthusiastic, respectful love," fifty 
years after, and the compliment he pays to her 
(then in her old age), " a great grandmother 
without grey hairs," is as delightful as any- 
thing in fiction or romance ; and is the evident 
origin of Mr Burke's celebrated apostrophe to 
the Queen of France. Nor is the political con- 
fession of faith which he makes on this occasion, 
without a suitable mixture of vanity and since- 
rity : the vanity we may ascribe to the player, the 
sincerity to the politician. The self-compla- 
cency with which he talks of his own success, 
both as a player and a writer, is not greater than 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



355 



the candour and cordiality with which he does 
heaped justice to the merits of his theatrical 
contemporaries and predecessors. He brings 
down the history of the stage, either by the 
help of observation or tradition, from the time 
of Shakspeare to his own; and quite dazzles 
the reader with a constellation of male and 
female, of tragic and comic, of past and pre- 
sent excellence. He gives portraits at full 
length of Kynaston, of Betterton, of Booth, 
of Estcourt, of Pinkethman and Dogget, of 
Mohun and Wilks, of Nokes and Sandford, 
of Mrs Montford, of Mrs Oldfield, of Mrs 
Barry, and Mrs Bracegirdle, and of others of 
equal note ; with delectable criticisms on their 
several performances, and anecdotes of their 
private lives, with scarcely a single particle of 
jealousy or ill-nature, or any other motive than 
to expatiate in the delight of talking of the 
ornaments of his art, and a wish to share his 
pleasure with the reader. I wish I could quote 
some of these theatrical sketches ; but the time 
presses. The latter part of his work is less 
entertaining when he becomes Manager, and 
gives us an exact statement of his squabbles 
with the Lord Chamberlain, and the expense of 
his ground-rent, his repairs, his scenery, and his 
dresses. — In his plays, his personal character 
perhaps predominates too much over the inven- 



356 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

tiveness of his Muse ; but so far from being 
dull, he is everywhere light, fluttering, and 
airy. His pleasure in himself made him de- 
sirous to please ; but his fault was, that he 
was too soon satisfied with what he did ; that 
his indolence or want of thought led him to 
indulge in the vein that flowed from him with 
most ease, and that his vanity did not allow him 
to distinguish between what he did best and 
worst. His 6 Careless Husband' is a very 
elegant piece of agreeable, thoughtless writing ; 
and the incident of Lady Easy throwing her 
handkerchief over her husband, whom she finds 
asleep in a chair by the side of her waiting- 
woman, was an admirable contrivance, taken, 
as he informs us, from real life. His < Double " 
Gallant/ which has been lately revived, though 
it cannot rank in the first, may take its place 
in the second or third class of comedies. It 
abounds in character, bustle, and stage-effect. 
It belongs to what may be called the composite 
style ; and very happily mixes up the comedy 
of intrigue, such as we see it in Mrs Centlivre's 
Spanish plots, with a tolerable share of the wit 
and spirit of Congreve and Vanbrugh. As 
there is a good deal of wit, there is a spice 
of wickedness in this play, which was a pri- 
vilege of the good old style of comedy, not 
altogether abandoned in Cibber's time. The 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 357 

luscious vein of the dialogue is stopped short in 

many of the scenes of the revived play, though 

not before we perceive its object — 

" In hidden mazes running, 

With wanton haste and giddy cunning." 

These imperfect hints of double meanings, how- 
ever, pass off without any marks of reproba- 
tion ; for, unless they are insisted on, or made 
pretty broad, the audience, from being accus- 
tomed to the cautious purity of the modern 
drama, are not very expert in decyphering the 
equivocal allusion, for which they are not on 
the look-out. To what is this increased nicety 
owing ? Was it that vice, from being formerly 
less common (though more fashionable), was 
less catching than at present? The first in- 
ference is by no means in our favour : for 
though I think that the grossness of manners 
prevailing in our fashionable comedies was a 
direct transcript of the manners of the court at 
the time, or in the period immediately pre- 
ceding, yet the same grossness of expression 
and allusion existed long before, as in the plays 
of Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, when there 
was not this grossness of manners, and it has 
of late years been gradually refining away. 
There is a certain grossness or freedom of ex- 
pression, which may arise as often from unsus- 



358 



ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



pecting simplicity as from avowed profligacy. 
Whatever may be our progress either in virtue 
or vice since the age of Charles II, certain it 
is that our manners are not mended since the 
time of Elizabeth and Charles I. Is it, then, 
that vice was formerly a thing more to be won. 
dered at than imitated ; that behind the rigid 
barriers of religion and morality it might be 
exposed freely, without the danger of any 
serious practical consequences — whereas now 
that the safeguards of wholesome authority and 
prejudice are removed, we seem afraid to trust 
our eyes or ears with a single situation or 
expression of a loose tendency, as if the mere 
mention of licentiousness implied a conscious 
approbation of it, and the extreme delicacy of 
our moral sense would be debauched by the 
bare suggestion of the possibility of vice ? 
But I shall not take upon me to answer this 
question. The characters in the * Double 
Gallant' are well kept up. At- All and Lady 
Dainty are the two most prominent characters 
in this comedy, and those into which Cibber 
has put most of his own nature and genius. 
They are the essence of active impertinence 
and fashionable frivolity. Cibber, in short, 
though his name has been handed down to us 
as a bye-word of impudent pretension and 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 359 

impenetrable dnlness by the classical pen of his 
accomplished rival, who, unfortunately, did 
not admit of any merit beyond the narrow 
circle of wit and friendship in which he 
himself moved, was a gentleman and a scholar 
of the old school ; a man of wit and pleasantry 
in conversation, a diverting mimic, an excellent 
actor, an admirable dramatic critic, and one 
of the best comic writers of his age. His 
works (always excepting his ' Birth-day Odes'), 
instead of being a caput mortuum of literature, 
had a great deal of the spirit, with a little too 
much of the froth. His ' Nonjuror ' was taken 
from Moliere's c Tartuffe/ and has been altered to 
the 6 Hypocrite/ [This latter is a lively but very 
provoking comedy, and it is provoking from 
the nature of the subject. If such things are, 
it is provoking; or if they are not, that we 
should be made to believe them. In the 
' TartufTe/ the glaring improbability of the 
plot, the absurdity of a man's imposing on the 
credulity of another against the evidence of 
his senses, and without any proof of the sin- 
cerity of a religious charlatan but his own 
professions, is carried off by long formal 
speeches and pompous casuistry. We find 
our patience tired out, and our understandings 
perplexed, as if we were sitting in a court of 



360 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

law. Tartuffe is a plausible, fair-spoken, long- 
winded knave, who, if he could not be sup- 
posed to convince, might be supposed to con- 
found his auditors. In the i Hypocrite' of 
Bickerstaff, the insidious, fawning, sophistical, 
accomplished French Abbe, is modernized 
into a low-lived, canting, impudent Methodist 
preacher. Dr Cantwell is a sturdy beggar, 
and nothing more ; he is not an impostor, but 
a bully. There is not in anything he says or 
does the least reason why Sir John Lambert 
should admit him into his family and friend- 
ship, suffer him to make love to his wife and 
aughter, disinherit his son in his favour, and 
obstinately refuse to listen to any insinuation 
or proof offered against the virtue and piety 
of his treacherous inmate. It might be said, 
that in the manners of the old French regime 
there was something to account for the blind 
ascendancy acquired by the priest over his 
benefactor, who might have submitted to be 
enthralled, robbed, cheated, and insulted, as a 
tacit proof of his religion and loyalty. The 
inquisitorial power exercised by the church was 
then so great, that a man who refused to be 
priest-ridden, might very soon be suspected of 
designs against the state. Such, at least, is the 
best account we can give of the sameness of 



OP THE LAST CENTURY. 361 

Moliere's e Orgon.' But in this country nothing 
of the kind could happen. A fellow like Dr 
Cantwell could only have got admittance into 
the kitchen of Sir John Lambert, or to the 
ear of old Lady Lambert. The animal mag- 
netism of such spiritual guides is, with us, 
directed against the weaker nerves of our 
female devotees. In the original, we admire 
the talents of the principal character ; in the 
translation, we only wonder at the incredible 
weakness of his dupes. In short, the fault of 
the piece is that the author has attempted to 
amalgamate two contradictory characters, by 
engrafting our vulgar Methodist on the courtly 
French impostor ; and this defect could not be 
remedied in the execution, however spirited or 
forcible. Maw worm is quite a local and 
rational character, and admirably fitted into 
the piece.] 6 Love's Last Shift ' appears to 
have been the author's favourite ; and he 
received the compliments of Sir John Van. 
brugh and old Mr Southern upon it — the latter 
said to him : — " Young man, your play is a 
good one ; and it will succeed, if you do not 
spoil it by your acting. ,, His plays did not 
always take equally. It is ludicrous to hear 
him complaining of the ill success of one of 
them, 6 Love in a Riddle/ a pastoral comedy, 



362 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



" of a nice morality" and well spoken senti- 
ments, which he wrote in opposition to the 
' Beggars' Opera/ at the time when its worth- 
less and vulgar rival was carrying everything 
triumphantly before it. Cibber brings this, 
with much pathetic naivete, as an instance of 
the lamentable want of taste in the town ! 

The 6 Suspicious Husband' by Hoadley, the 
< Jealous Wife ' by Colman, and the ' Clandes- 
tine Marriage' by Colman and Garrick, are 
excellent plays of the middle style of comedy, 
whieh are formed rather by judgment and 
selection than by any original vein of genius ; 
and have all the parts of a good comedy in 
degree, without having any one prominent, or 
to excess. The character of Ranger, in the 
c Suspicious Husband/ is only a variation of 
those of Farquhar, of the same class as his 
Sir Harry Wildair and others, without equal 
spirit. The ' Jealous Wife' herself is, how- 
ever, a dramatic chef-d'oeuvre, and worthy 
of being acted as often, and better than it is. 
[Colman, the elder, was the translator of 
Terence: and the ' Jealous Wife' is a clas- 
sical play. The plot is regular, the cha- 
racters well supported, and the moral the 
best in the world. The dialogue has more 
sense than wit. The ludicrous arises from the 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



363 



skilful developement of the characters, and the 
absurdities they commit in their own persons, 
rather than from the smart reflections which 
are made upon them by others. Thus nothing 
can be more ridiculous or more instructive than 
the scenes of which Mrs Oakly is the heroine, 
yet they are all serious and unconscious : she 
exposes herself to our contempt and ridicule 
by the part she acts, by the airs she gives 
herself, and her fantastic behaviour in the situa- 
tions in which she is placed. In other words, 
the character is pure comedy, not satire. Con- 
greve's comedies for the most part are satires, 
in which, from an exuberance of wit, the diffe- 
rent speakers play off their sharp-pointed raillery 
on one another's foibles, real or supposed. The 
best and most genuine kind of comedy, because 
the most dramatic, is that of character or 
humour, in which the persons introduced upon 
the stage are left to betray their own folly by 
their words and actions. The progressive wind- 
ing up of the story of the present comedy is 
excellently managed. The jealousy and hysteric 
violence of Mrs Oakly increase every moment, 
as the pretext for them becomes more and more 
frivolous. The attention is kept alive by our 
doubts about Oakly's wavering (but in the end 



364 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

triumphant) firmness ; and the arch insinuations 
and well-concerted home-thrusts of the Major 
heighten the comic interest of the scene. There 
is only one circumstance on which this veteran 
bachelor's freedom of speech might have thrown 
a little more light, namely, that the married 
lady's jealousy is in truth only a pretence for 
the exercise of her domineering spirit in general ; 
so that we are left at last in some uncertainty 
as to the turn which this humour may take, and 
as to the future repose of her husband, though 
the affair of Miss Russet is satisfactorily cleared 
up. The under-plot of the two lovers is very 
ingeniously fitted into the principal one, and is 
not without interest in itself. Charles Oakly is 
a spirited, well-meaning, thoughtless young fel- 
low, and Harriet Russet is an amiable romantic 
girl, in that very common, but always romantic 
situation — in love. Her persecution from the 
addresses of LordTrinket and Sir Harry Beagle 
fans the gentle flame which had been kindled just 
a year before in her breast, produces the adven- 
tures and cross-purposes of the plot, and at 
last reconciles her to, and throws her into the 
arms of her lover, in spite of her resentment 
for his misconduct and apparent want of deli- 
cacy. The figure which Lord Trinket and 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



365 



Lady Freelove make in the piece is as odious 
and contemptible as it is possible for people in 
that class of life (and for no others) to make. 
The insolence, the meanness, the affectation, 
the hollowness, the want of humanity, sincerity, 
principle, and delicacy, are such as can only be 
found where artificial rank and station in society 
supersede not merely a regard to propriety of 
conduct, but the necessity even of an attention 
to appearances. The morality of the stage has 
(we are ready to hope) told in that direction as 
well as others, has, in some measure, suppressed 
the suffocating pretensions and flaunting affec- 
tation of vice and folly in Ci persons of honour," 
and, as it were, humanized rank and title. The 
pictures drawn of the finished depravity of such 
characters in high life, in the old comedies and 
novels, can hardly have been thrown away upon 
the persons themselves, any more than upon the 
world at large. Little Terence O'Cutler, the 
delicious protege of Lord Trinket and Lady 
Freelove, is a fit instrument for them to use, 
and follows in the train of such principals as 
naturally and assuredly as their shadow. Sir 
Harry Beagle is a coarse, but striking cha- 
racter of a thorough-bred fox-hunting country 
squire. He has but one idea in his head, but 
one sentiment in his heart — and that is his stud. 



366 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

This idea haunts his imagination, tinges or 
imbues every other object, and accounts for his 
whole phraseology, appearance, costume, and 
conduct. Sir Harry's ruling passion is varied 
very ingeniously, and often turned to a very 
ludicrous account. There is a necessary mono- 
tony in the humour, which arises from a want 
of more than one idea, but the obviousness of 
the jest almost makes up for the recurrence of 
it ; if the means of exciting mirth are mecha- 
nical, the effect is sure ; and to say that a hearty 
laugh is cheaply purchased, is not a serious 
objection against it. When an author is terribly 
conscious of plagiarism, he seldom confesses it \ 
when the obligation does not press his con- 
science, he sometimes does. Colman, in the 
advertisement to the first edition of the £ Jealous 
Wife/ apologises for the freedom which he has 
used in borrowing from 6 Tom J ones.' In read- 
ing this modest excuse, though we had seen 
the play several times, we could not imagine 
what part of the plot was taken from Fielding. 
We did not suspect that Miss Russet was 
Sophia Western, and that old Russet and Sir 
Harry Beagle between them somehow repre- 
sented Squire Western and young Blifil. But 
so it is ! The outline of the plot and some of 
the characters are certainly the same, but the 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 367 

filling up destroys the likeness. There is all in 
the novel that there is in the play, but there is 
so much in the novel that is not in the play, 
that the total impression is quite different, and 
loses even an appearance of resemblance. In 
the same manner, though a profile or a shade of 
a face is exactly the same as the original, we 
with difficulty recognize it from the absence of 
so many other particulars. Colman might have 
kept his own secret, and no one would have 
been the wiser for it.] 

The 6 Clandestine Marriage ' is nearly with- 
out a fault; and has some lighter theatrical 
graces, which I suspect Garrick threw into 
it. 'Canton is, I should think, his, though 
this classification of him among the ornamental 
parts of the play may seem whimsical. Gar- 
rick's genius does not appear to have been 
equal to the construction of a solid drama ) but 
he could retouch and embellish with great 
gaiety and knowledge of the technicalities of 
his art. Garrick not only produced joint- 
pieces and after-pieces, but often set off the 
plays of his friends and contemporaries with 
the garnish, the sauce piquant, of prologues 
and epilogues, at which he had an admirable 
knack. — The elder Colman's translation of 
6 Terence,' I may here add, has always been 



368 



ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



considered, by good judges, as an equal proof 
of the author's knowledge of the Latin lan- 
guage, and taste in his own. 

BickerstafFs plays and comic operas are 
continually acted; they come under the class 
of mediocrity, generally speaking. Their popu- 
larity seems to be chiefly owing to the unaf- 
fected ease and w r ant of pretension with which 
they are written, with a certain humorous 
naivete in the lower characters, and an exquisite 
adaptation of the music to the songs. His 
' Love in a Village ' is one of the most de- 
lightful comic operas on the stage. It is truly 
pastoral; and the sense of music hovers over 
the very scene like the breath of morning. In 
his alteration of the ' TartufFe ' he has spoiled 
the i Hypocrite/ but he has added Maw worm. 

Mrs Cowley's comedies of the ' Belle's 
Stratagem/ 6 Who's the Dupe/ and others, are 
of the second or third class ; they are rather 
refaccimentos of the characters, incidents, and 
materials of former w 7 riters, got up with con- 
siderable liveliness and ingenuity, than original 
compositions, with marked qualities of their own. 

Goldsmith's 6 Good-natured Man' is inferior 
to ' She Stoops to Conquer ;' and even this last 
play, with all its shifting vivacity, is rather a 
sportive and whimsical effusion of the author's 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 369 

fancy, a delightful and delicately managed cari- 
cature, than a genuine comedy. [It, however, 
bears the stamp of the author's genius, which 
was an indefinable mixture of the original and 
imitative. His plot, characters, and incidents 
are all apparently new ; and yet, when you 
come to look into them, they are all old, with 
little variation or disguise : that is, the author 
sedulously avoided the beaten, vulgar path, 
and sought for singularity, but found it rather 
in the unhackneyed and eccentric inventions of 
those who had gone before him, than in his 
own stores. The 6 Vicar of Wakefield/ which 
abounds more than any of his works in delight- 
ful and original traits, is still very much bor- 
rowed, in its general tone and outline, from 
Fielding's 6 J oseph Andrews/ Again, the cha- 
racters and adventures of Tony Lumpkin, 
and the ridiculous conduct of his mother, in 
the present comedy, are a counterpart (even to 
the incident of the theft of the jewels) of those 
of the Widow Blackacre and her booby son in 
Wycherley's 6 Plain Dealer.' 

This sort of plagiarism, which gives us a 
repetition of new and striking pictures of human 
life, is much to be preferred to the dull routine 
of trite, vapid, every-day common-places ; bu^ 
it is more dangerous, as the stealing of pictures 

2 b 



370 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



or family plate, where the property can be im- 
mediately identified, is more liable to detection 
than the stealing of bank-notes, or the current 
coin of the realm. Dr Johnson's sarcasm 
against some writer, that " his singularity was 
not his excellence," cannot be applied to Gold- 
smith's writings in general ; but we are not sure 
whether it might not in severity be applied 
to 'She Stoops to Conquer.' The incidents 
and characters are many of them exceedingly 
amusing; but they are so, a little at the ex- 
pense of probability and bienseance. Tony 
Lumpkin is a very essential and unquestionably 
comic personage ; but certainly his absurdities 
or his humours fail of none of their effect for 
w r ant of being carried far enough. He is in 
his own sex what a hoyden is in the other. He 
is that vulgar nickname, a hobbety-hoy, drama- 
tised ; forward and sheepish, mischievous and 
idle, cunning and stupid, with the vices of the 
man and the follies of the boy; fond of low 
company, and giving himself all the airs of 
consequence of the young squire. His vacant 
delight in playing at cup and ball, and his im- 
penetrable confusion and obstinate gravity in 
spelling the letter, drew fresh beauties from Mr 
Liston's face. Young Marlow's bashfulness in 
the scenes with his mistress is, when well 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



371 



acted, irresistibly ludicrous ; but still nothing 
can quite overcome our incredulity as to the 
existence of such a character in the present day, 
and in the rank of life, and with the education 
which Marlow is supposed to have had. It is 
a highly amusing caricature, a ridiculous fancy, 
but no more. One of the finest and most deli- 
cate touches of character is in the transition 
from the modest gentleman's manner with his 
mistress, to the easy and agreeable tone of 
familiarity with the supposed chamber-maid, 
which was not total and abrupt, but exactly such 
in kind and degree as such a character of natu- 
ral reserve and constitutional timidity would 
undergo from the change of circumstances. Of 
the other characters in the piece, the most 
amusing are Tony Lumpkin's associates at 
the Three Pigeons; and of these we profess 
the greatest partiality for the important show- 
man who declares that " his bear dances to none 
but the genteelest of tunes, 6 Water parted from 
the Sea/ or the minuet in 6 Ariadne ! ' " This is 
certainly the u high- fantastical" of low comedy.] 
Murphy's plays of c All in the Wrong ' and 
' Know Your Own Mind,' are admirably writ- 
ten ; with sense, spirit, and conception of cha- 
racter, but without any great effect of the 
humorous, or that truth of feeling which distin- 



372 



ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



guishes the boundary between the absurdities of 
natural character and the gratuitous fictions of 
the poet's pen. The heroes of these two plays, 
Millamour and Sir Benjamin Constant, are too 
ridiculous in their caprices to be tolerated, ex- 
cept in farce ; and yet their follies are so flimsy, 
so motiveless, and fine-spun, as not to be intel- 
ligible, or to have any effect in their' only pro- 
per sphere. Both his principal pieces are said 
to have suffered by their similarity, first, to 
Column's 6 Jealous Wife,' and next to the 
' School for Scandal,' though in both cases he 
had the undoubted priority. It is hard that the 
fate of plagiarism should attend upon origi- 
nality ; yet it is clear that the elements of the 
' School for Scandal ' are not sparingly scat- 
tered in Murphy's comedy of 6 Know Your 
Own Mind/ which appeared before the latter 
play, only to be eclipsed by it. This brings me 
to speak of Sheridan. 

Mr Sheridan has been justly called " a dra- 
matic star of the first magnitude /' and, indeed, 
among the comic writers of the last century he 
" shines like Hesperus among the lesser lights." 
He has left four several dramas behind him, all 
different or of different kinds, and all excellent 
in their way ;— the 1 School for Scandal/ the 
6 Rivals/ the \ Duenna/ and the 6 Critic.' The 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



373 



attraction of this last piece is, however, less in 
the mock tragedy rehearsed than in the dialogue 
of the comic scenes, and in the character of Sir 
Fretful Plagiary, which is supposed to have 
been intended for Cumberland. If some of the 
characters in the 6 School for Scandal ' were 
contained in Murphy's comedy of 1 Know 
Your Own Mind/ (and certainly some of 
Dashwoud's detached speeches and satirical 
sketches are written with quite as firm and 
masterly a hand as any of those given to the 
members of the scandalous club, Mrs Candour 
or Lady Sneerwell,) yet they were burie d in it for 
want of grouping and relief, like the colours of 
a well-drawn picture sunk in the canvass. She- 
ridan brought them out and exhibited them in 
all their glory. If that gem, the character of 
Joseph Surface, was Murphy's, the splendid 
and more valuable setting was Sheridan's. He 
took Murphy's Malvil from his lurking-place in 
the closet, and "dragged the struggling mon- 
ster into day" upon the stage. That is, he gave 
interest, life, and action, or, in other words, its 
dramatic being, to the mere conception and 
written specimens of a character. This is the 
merit of Sheridan's comedies, that everything 
in them tells — there is no labour in vain. His 
comic muse does not go about prying into ob- 



374 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

scure corners, or collecting idle curiosities, but 
shows her laughing face and points to her rich 
treasure — the follies of mankind. She is gar- 
landed and crowned with roses and vine-leaves. 
Her eyes sparkle with delight, and her heart 
runs over with good-natured malice. Her step 
is firm and light, and her ornaments consum- 
mate ! The ' School for Scandal ? is, if not the 
most original, perhaps the most finished and 
faultless comedy which we have. When it is 
acted you hear people all around you exclaim- 
ing, 66 Surely it is impossible for anything to be 
cleverer." The scene in which Charles sells all 
the old family pictures but his uncle's, who is 
the purchaser in disguise, and that of the dis- 
covery of Lady Teazle when the screen falls, 
are among the happiest and most highly wrought 
that comedy, in its wide and brilliant range, 
can boast. Besides the wit and ingenuity of 
this play, there is a genial spirit of frankness 
and generosity about it that relieves the heart 
as well as clears the lungs. It professes a faith 
in the natural goodness as well as habitual de- 
pravity of human nature. While it strips off 
the mask of hypocrisy it inspires a confidence 
between man and man. As often as it is acted 
it must serve to clear the air of that low, creep- 
ing, pestilent fog of cant and mysticism, which 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



375 



threatens to confound every native impulse, or 
honest conviction, in the nauseous belief of a 
perpetual lie, and the laudable profession of 
systematic hypocrisy. The character of Lady 
Teazle is not well made out by the author, nor 
has it been well represented on the stage since 
the time of Miss Farren. The 'Rivals' is a 
play of even more action and incident, but of 
less wit and satire than the ' School for Scandal/ 
It is as good as a novel in the reading, and has 
the broadest and most palpable effect on the 
stage. If Joseph Surface and Charles have a 
smack of Tom Jones and Blifil in their moral 
constitution, Sir Anthony Absolute and Mrs 
Malaprop remind us of honest Matthew Bram- 
ble and his sister Tabitha in their tempers and 
dialect. Acres is a distant descendant of Sir 
Andrew Ague-cheek. It must be confessed of 
this author, as Falstaff says of some one, that 
"he had damnable iteration in him ! " [The 
6 Rivals' is one of the most agreeable comedies 
we have. In the elegance and brilliancy of the 
dialogue, in a certain animation of moral sen- 
timent, and in the masterly denouement of the 
fable, the 6 School for Scandal' is superior ; but 
the 6 Rivals' has more life and action in it, and 
abounds in a greater number of whimsical cha- 
racters, unexpected incidents, and absurd con- 



376 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

trasts of situation. The effect of the 6 School 
for Scandal ' is something like reading a collec- 
tion of epigrams, that of the * Rivals 9 is more 
like reading a novel. In the first you are 
always at the toilette or in the drawing-room ; 
in the last you pass into the open air, and take 
a turn in King's Mead. The interest is kept 
alive in the one play by smart repartees, in the 
other by startling rencontres; in the one we 
laugh at the satirical descriptions of the 
speakers, in the other the situation of their 
persons on the stage is irresistibly ludicrous. 
Thus the interviews between Lucy and Sir 
Lucius O'Trigger, between Acres and his friend 
Jack, who is at once his confidant and his rival ; 
between Mrs Malaprop and the lover of her 
niece as Captain Absolute, and between that 
young lady and the same person as the pre- 
tended Ensign Beverley, tell from the mere 
double entendre of the scene, and from the igno- 
rance of the parties of one another's persons 
and designs. There is no source of dramatic 
effect more complete than this species of practi- 
cal satire, (in which our author seems to have 
been an adept,) where one character in the piece 
is made a fool of and turned into ridicule to his 
face, by the very person whom he is trying to 
overreach. 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



377 



There is scarcely a more delightful play than 
the 6 Rivals' when it is well acted, or one that 
goes off more indifferently when it is not. The 
humour is of so broad and farcical a kind, that 
if not thoroughly entered into and carried off by 
the tone and manner of the performers it fails of 
effect from its obtrusiveness, and becomes flat 
from eccentricity. The absurdities brought 
forward are of that artificial, affected, and pre- 
posterous description, that we in some measure 
require to have the evidence of our senses to see 
the persons themselves "jetting under the ad- 
vanced plumes of their folly," before we can en- 
tirely believe in their existence, or derive plea- 
sure from their exposure. If the extravagance 
of the poet's conception is not supported by the 
downright reality of the representation, our cre- 
dulity is staggered and falls to the ground. 

For instance, Acres should be as odd a com- 
pound in external appearance as he is of the 
author's brain. He must look like a very nota- 
ble mixture of the lively coxcomb and the blun- 
dering blockhead, to reconcile us to his con- 
tinued impertinence and senseless flippancy. 
Acres is a mere conventional character, a gay, 
fluttering automaton, constructed upon me- 
chanical principles, and pushed, as it were, by 
the logic of wit and a strict keeping in the pur- 



378 ON THE COMIC "WRITERS 

suit of the ridiculous, into follies and fopperies 
which his natural thoughtlessness would never 
have dreamt of. Acres does not say or do what 
such a half-witted young gentleman would say 
or do of his own head, but what he might be 
led to do or say with such a prompter as Sheri- 
dan at his elbow to tutor him in absurdity — to 
make a butt of him first, and laugh at him after- 
wards. Thus his presence of mind in persisting 
in his allegorical swearing, u Odds triggers and 
flints/' in the duel scene, when he is trembling 
all over with cowardice, is quite out of charac- 
ter, but it keeps up the preconcerted jest. In 
proportion, therefore, as the author has over- 
done the part, it calls for a greater effort of ani- 
mal spirits, and a peculiar aptitude of genius in 
the actor to go through with it, to humour the 
extravagance, and to seem to take a real and 
cordial delight in caricaturing himself. Dodd 
was the only actor we remember who realized 
this ideal combination of volatility and phlegm, 
of slowness of understanding with levity of 
purpose, of vacancy of thought and vivacity of 
gesture. Acres's affected phrases and apish 
manners used to sit upon this inimitable actor 
with the same sort of bumpkin grace and con- 
scious self-complacency as the new cut of his 
clothes. In general, this character is made 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 379 

little of on the stage ; and when left to shift for 
itself, seems as vapid as it is forced. 

Mrs Malaprop is another portrait of the same 
over-charged description. The chief drollery 
of this extraordinary personage consists in her 
unaccountable and systematic misapplication of 
hard words. How she should know the words, 
and not their meaning, is a little odd. In read- 
ing the play we are amused with such a series 
of ridiculous blunders, just as we are with a 
series of puns or cross-readings. But to keep 
up the farce upon the stage, besides 6( a nice 
derangement of epitaphs," the imagination must 
have the assistance of a stately array of grave 
pretensions, and a most formidable establish- 
ment of countenance, with all the vulgar 
self-sufficiency of pride and ignorance, before 
it can give full credit to this learned tissue of 
technical absurdity. 

As to Miss Lydia Languish, she is not easily 
done to the life. She is a delightful compound 
of extravagance and naivete. She is fond and 
froward, practical and chimerical, hot and cold 
in a breath. She is that kind of fruit which 
drops into the mouth before it is ripe. She 
must have a husband, but she will not have one 
without an elopement. This young lady is at 
an age and of a disposition to throw herself 



380 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

into the arms of the first handsome young fel- 
low she meets ; but she repents and grows sul- 
len, like a spoiled child, when she finds that 
nobody hinders her. She should have all the 
physiognomical marks of a true boarding-school, 
novel-reading Miss about her, and some others 
into the bargain. Sir Anthony's description 
hardly comes up to the truth. She should have 
large, rolling eyes ; pouting, disdainful lips ; a 
pale, clear complexion ; an oval chin, an arching 
neck, and a profusion of dark ringlets falling 
down upon it, or she will never answer to our 
ideas of the charming sentimental hoyden, who 
is the heroine of the play. 

Faulkland is a refined study of a very com- 
mon disagreeable character, actuated by an 
unceasing spirit of contradiction, who per- 
versely seizes every idle pretext for making 
himself and others miserable; or querulous 
enthusiast, determined on disappointment, and 
enamoured with suspicion. He is without 
excuse ; nor is it without some difficulty that 
we endure his self-tormenting follies, through 
our partiality for J ulia, the amiable, unresisting 
victim of his gloomy caprice. 

Sir Anthony Absolute and his son are the 
most sterling characters of the play. The 
tetchy, positive, impatient, overbearing, but 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 381 

warm and generous character of the one, and 
the gallant, determined spirit, adroit address, 
and dry humour of the other, are admirably 
set off against each other. The two scenes in 
which they contend about the proposed match, 
in the first of which the indignant lover is as 
choleric and rash as the old gentleman is 
furious and obstinate, and in the latter of which 
the son affects such a cool indifference and 
dutiful submission to his father, from having 
found out that it is the mistress of his choice 
whom he is to be compelled to marry, are 
master-pieces both of wit, humour, and cha- 
racter. Sir Anthony Absolute is an evident 
copy after Smollett's kind-hearted, high- 
spirited Matthew Bramble, as Mrs Malaprop 
is after the redoubted linguist, Mrs Tabitha 
Bramble ; and, indeed, the whole tone, as well 
as the local scenery of the 6 Rivals,' reminds 
the reader of 'Humphrey Clinker.' Sheridan 
had a right to borrow; and he made use of 
this privilege, not sparingly, both in this and in 
his other plays. His Acres, as well in the 
general character as in particular scenes, is a 
mannered imitation of Sir Andrew Ague-cheek. 

Fag, Lucy, and Sir Lucius OTrigger, though 
subordinate agents in the plot of the 6 Rivals/ 
are not the less amusing on that account. Fag 



382 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 

wears his master's wit, as lie does his laee, at 
second-hand ; Lucy is an edifying specimen of 
simplicity in a chamber-maid, and Sir Lucius 
is an honest fortune-hunting Hibernian, who 
means well to himself, and no harm to any- 
body else. They are also traditional characters, 
common to the stage ; but they are drawn with 
all the life and spirit of originals. 

This appears, indeed, to have been the pecu- 
liar forte and the great praise of our author's 
genius, that he could imitate with the spirit of 
an inventor. There is hardly a character, we 
believe, or a marked situation in any of his 
works, of which there are not distinct traces to 
be found in his predecessors. But though the 
ground-work and texture of his materials was 
little more than what he found already existing 
in the models of acknowledged excellence, yet 
he constantly varied or improved upon their 
suggestions with masterly skill and ingenuity. 
He applied what he thus borrowed, with a 
sparkling effect and rare felicity, to different 
circumstances, and adapted it with peculiar 
elegance to the prevailing taste of the age. 
He w r as the farthest possible from a servile 
plagiarist. He wrote in imitation of Con- 
greve, Vanbrugh, or Wycherley, as those 
persons would have written in continuation of 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 383 

themselves, had they lived at the same time 
with him. There is no excellence of former 
writers of which he has not availed himself, 
and which he has not converted to his own 
purposes, with equal spirit and success. He 
had great acuteness and knowledge of the 
world ; and if he did not create his own cha- 
racters, he compared them with their prototypes 
in nature, and understood their bearings and 
qualities, before he undertook to make a dif- 
ferent use of them. He had wit, fancy, sen- 
timent at command, enabling him to place the 
thoughts of others in new lights of his own, 
which reflected back an added lustre on the 
originals : whatever he touched, he adorned 
with all the ease, grace, and brilliancy of his 
style. If he ranks only as a man of second- 
rate genius, he was assuredly a man of first-rate 
talents. He was the most classical and the 
most popular dramatic writer of his age. The 
works he has left behind him will remain as 
monuments of his fame, for the delight and 
instr action of posterity. 

Mr Sheridan not only excelled as a comic 
writer, but was also an eminent orator, and a 
disinterested patriot. As a public speaker, he 
was distinguished by acuteness of observation 
and pointed wit, more than by impassioned 



384 



ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



eloquence, or powerful and comprehensive 
reasoning. Considering him with reference to 
his conversational talents, his merits as a comic 
w T riter, and as a political character, his was 
perhaps the most accomplished person of his 
time. 

" Take him for all in all, 
We shall not look upon his like again."] 

The ' Duenna' is a perfect work of art. It 
has the utmost sweetness and point. The plot, 
the characters, the dialogue, are all complete in 
themselves, and they are all his own ; and the 
songs are the best that ever were written, 
except those in the 6 Beggars' Opera.' They 
have a joyous spirit of intoxication in them, 
and a strain of the most melting tenderness. 
Compare the softness of that beginning, 
" Had I heart for falsehood framed," 
with the spirited defiance to Fortune in the lines, 

" Half thy malice youth could bear, 
And the rest a bumper drown." 

It would have been too much for the author 
of these elegant and classic productions not to 
have had some drawbacks on his felicity and 
fame. But even the applause of nations and 
the favour of princes cannot always be enjoyed 
with impunity. Sheridan was not only an 
excellent dramatic writer, but a first-rate par- 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



385 



liamentary speaker, and a disinterested patriot. 
His characteristics as an orator were manly, 
unperverted good sense, and keen irony. Wit, 
which has been thought a two-edged weapon, 
was by him always employed on the same 
side of the question — I think, on the right 
one. His set and more laboured speeches, 
as that on the Begum's affairs, were pro- 
portionably abortive and unimpressive ; but no 
one was equal to him in replying, on the spur 
of the moment, to pompous absurdity, and un- 
ravelling the web of flimsy sophistry. He was 
the last accomplished debater of the House of 
Commons. His character will, however, soon 
be drawn by one who has all the ability, and 
every inclination to do him justice ; who knows 
how to bestow praise and to deserve it ; by one 
who is himself an ornament of private and of 
public life ; a satirist, beloved by his friends ; 
a wit and a patriot to boot ; a poet, and an 
honest man. 

Macklin's < Man of the World' has one 
powerfully written character, that of Sir Per- 
tinax Macsycophant, but it required Cooke's 
acting to make it thoroughly effectual. 

Mr Holcroft, in his ' Road to Ruin/ set the 
example of that style of comedy, in which 
the slang phrases of jockey-noblemen and the 

2 c 



386 



ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



humours of the four-in-hand club are blended 
with the romantic sentiments of distressed 
damsels and philosophic waiting-maids, and in 
which he has been imitated by the most suc- 
cessful of our living writers, unless we make 
a separate class for the school of Cumber- 
land, who was almost entirely devoted to the 
comedie larmoyante, and who, passing from 
the light, volatile spirit of his 6 West Indian,' 
to the mawkish sensibility of the 6 Wheel of 
Fortune/ linked the Muse of English comedy 
to the genius of German tragedy, where she 
has since remained, like Chris tobel fallen asleep 
in the Witch's arms, and where T shall leave 
her, as I have, not the poet's privilege to 
break the spell. [As to The 6 West Indian' 
it is a play that from the time of its first 
appearing has continued to hold possession 
of the stage, with just enough merit to keep 
it there, and no striking faults to drive 
it thence. It is above mediocrity. There is 
an agreeable vein of good humour and animal 
spirits running through it that does not suffer 
it to sink into downright insipidity, nor ever 
excites any very high degree of interest or 
delight. W 7 it there is none, and hardly an 
attempt at humour, except in the character of 
Major O'Flaherty, who would not be recognized 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 387 

as a genuine Irishman but by virtue of his re- 
presentative on the stage. His blunders and 
conduct are not such as would proceed from 
the good-natured unthinking impetuosity of 
such a person as OTlaherty is intended to 
be : but they are such as the author might sit 
down and try to invent for him. It is not an 
Irish character, but a character playing the 
Irishman; not a hasty, warm-hearted, hair- 
brained fellow, stumbling on mistakes by ac- 
cident either in his words or actions, but a very 
complaisant gentleman, looking out for them 
by design, to humour the opinion which you 
entertain of him, and who is to make himself 
a national butt for the audience to laugh at. 
The i West Indian' himself (Belcour) is cer- 
tainly the support of the piece. There is some- 
thing interesting in the idea of seeing a young 
fellow of high animal spirits, a handsome for- 
tune, and considerable generosity of feeling, 
launched from the other side of the world 
(with the additional impetus that the distance 
would give him) to run the gauntlet of the 
follies and vices of the town, to fall into scrapes 
only to get out of them, and who is full of 
professions of attachment to virtues which he 
does not practise, and of repentance for offences 
which he has not committed. It is the same 
character as Charles Surface in the 6 School for 



388 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



Scandal' with an infusion of the romantic from 
his transatlantic origin, and an additional ex- 
cuse for his extravagances in the tropical 
temperature of his blood. 

The language of this play is elegant but com- 
mon place : the speakers seem in general more 
intent on adjusting their periods than on settling 
their affairs. The sentime nts aspire to Liberality. 
They are amiably mawkish, and as often as 
they incline to paradox, have a rapid sort of 
petulance about them, which excites neither 
our sympathy nor our esteem. The plot is a 
good plot. It is well laid, decently distributed 
through the course of five acts, and wound up 
at last to its final catastrophe in a single sen- 
tence.] 

There are two other writers whom I have 
omitted to mention, but not forgotten : they are 
our two immortal farce-writers, the authors of 
the 4 Mayor of Garratt' and the 4 Agreeable 
Surprise.' If Foote has been called our English 
Aristophanes, O'Keefe might well be called our 
English Moliere. The scale of the modern writer 
was smaller, but the spirit is the same. In light, 
cureless laughter, and pleasant exaggerations 
of the humorous, we have had no one equal to 
him. There is no labour or contrivance in his 
scenes, but the drollery of his subject seems to 
strike irresistibly upon his fancy, and run away 



OF THE LAST CENT TRY. 



389 



with his discretion as it does with ours. His 
i Cowslip and i Lingo' are 4 Touchstone* and 
4 Audrey' revived. He is himself a modern 
antique. His fancy lias all the quaintness 
and extravagance of the old writers, with 
the ease and lightness which the moderns 
arrogate to themselves. All his pieces are 
delightful, hut the 6 Agreeable Surprise' is 
the most so. There are in this some of the 
most irresistible douhle entendre*, the most 
felicitous blunders in situation and character, 
that caii be conceived; and in Lingo's superb 
replication, 44 A scholar! I was a master of 
scholars," he has hit the height of the ridi- 
culous. Foote had more dry, sarcastic humour, 
and more knowledge of the world. His farces 
are bitter satires, more or less personal, as it 
happened. Mother Cole, in the 4 Minor/ and 
Mr Smirk the Auctioneer, in 4 Ta-te,' with 
their coadjutors, are rich cut-and-comr-a^ain, 
"pleasant, though wrong." But the 'Mayor 
of Garratt' is his magnum opus in this line. 
Some comedies are long farces : this farce* is 
a comedy in little. It is also one of the best 
acted farces that we have. The acting of 
Dowton and Russell, in Major Sturgeon and 
Jerry Sneak, cannot be too much praised; 
Foote himself would have been satisfied with 
it. The strut, the bluster, the hollow swag- 



390 



ON THE COMIC WRITERS 



gering, and turkey-cock swell of the Major; 
and Jerry's meekness, meanness, folly, good- 
nature, and hen-pecked air, are assuredly done 
to the life. The latter character is even better 
than the former, which is saying a bold word. 
Dowton's art is only an imitation of art, of 
an affected or an assumed character; but in 
Russell's Jerry you see the very soul of nature, 
in a fellow that is " pigeon-livered and lacks 
gall," laid open and anatomized. You can 
see that his heart is no bigger than a pin, and 
his head is as soft as a pippin. His whole 
aspect is chilled and frightened, as if he had 
been dipped in a pond; and yet he looks as 
if he would like to be snug and comfortable 
if he durst. He smiles as if he would be 
friends with you upon any terms, and the 
Dean come in his eyes because you will not 
let him. The tones of his voice are prophetic 
as the cuckoo's under-song. His words are 
made of water-gruel. The scene in which 
he tries to make a confidant of the Major is 
great; and his song of 1 Robinson Crusoe' 
as melancholy as the island itself. The recon- 
ciliation-scene with his wife, and his exclama- 
tion over her, u to think that I should make 
my Molly vcep!" are pathetic, if the last stage 
of human infirmity is so. This farce appears 
to me to be both moral and entertaining ; yet 



OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



391 



it does not take. It is considered as an unjust 
satire on the city, and the country at large; 
and there is a very frequent repetition of the 
word " nonsense ? ' in the house, during the 
performance. Mr Dowton was even hissed, 
either from t lie upper boxes or gallery, in his 
speech recounting the marching of h\< corps 
"from BrentiV»rd to Ealing, and from Baling 

to Acton ;" and several person^ in the pit, who 
thought the whole low, were for going out. 
This shows well for the progress of civilization. 
I suppose the manners described in the 4 Mayor 
of ( rarratt' have, in the la-t forty \ . ars, become 
obsolete, and the characters ideal : we have 
no longer cither len-peeked or brutal hus- 
bands or domineering wiles; the Miss Molly 
•lollops no longer wi (1 .Ferry Bneaks, or admire 
the brave Major Sturgeons on the other side 
of Temple bar; all our Boldiera have become 

heroes, and our unc/i-tratea Ti ipectable, Bud 
the farce of life is o\ i r. 

One more name, and I hava done. It is 
tliat of lYter Pindar. The hi-lorian of 4 Sir 
Joseph Banks' and the * Kmperor of Morocco/ 
of the 6 Pilgrims and the Peas,' of the i Royal 
Academy,' and of 6 Mr W hi thread's brewing- 
vat,' the bird in whom the nation and the 
king delighted, is old and blind, but .-till merry 



392 ON THE COMIC WRITERS, ETC* 

and wise ; — remembering how he has made the 
world laugh in his time, and not repenting of the 
mirth he has given ; with an involuntary smile 
lighted up at the mad pranks of his Muse, 
and the lucky hits of his pen — " faint picture 
of those flashes of his spirit, that were wont 
to set the table in a roar;" like his own 
expiring taper, bright and fitful to the last; 
tagging a rhyme or conning his own epitaph ; 
and waiting for the last summons, grateful an 1 
contented ! 

I have thus gone through the history of that 
part of our literature which I had proposed 
to myself to treat of. I have only to add, by 
way of explanation, that in some few parts I 
had anticipated myself in fugitive or periodical 
publications; and I thought it better to repeat 
what I had already stated to the best of my 
ability, than alter it for the WOT86. These parti 
bear, however, a very small proportion to the 
whole; and I have used such diligence and 
care as I could, in adding to them whatever 
appeared necessary to complete the general 
view of the subject, or make it (as far as lay 
in my power) interesting to others. 



THE END. 



I 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Jan. 2009 

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